BACK

Nearly 70pc of Gaza war dead are women, children: UN

REUTERS
Saturday, Nov 09, 2024

GENEVA: The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70 percent of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

The UN tally since the start of the war, in which Israel’s military is fighting Hamas militants, includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.

The 8,119 victims verified is a much lower number than the toll of more than 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war. But the UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.