A Palestinian man carries the body of his grandson who was killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at the hospital Rafah, southern Gaza, Friday, December 22, 2023.
The death toll of Israel’s genocide in Gaza reached 20,057, according to a statement Friday by Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Taking into account the 7,000 missing, most buried under rubble, the true death toll has likely already exceeded 25,000.
A death toll of 20,000–25,000 out of a population of just over 2 million means that more than one out of 100 people in Gaza has been killed in the past two-and-a-half months. This is the equivalent of 3.3 million people in the United States.
The Health Ministry said over 50,000 people are wounded, of whom 5,000 are in critical condition and risk death unless they are transferred abroad for treatment.
Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said that 50,000 pregnant women and about 900,000 children are suffering from malnutrition. He said that just one-fiftieth of the required aid is traveling into Gaza.
On Thursday, the United Nations reported that a quarter of Gaza’s population, or over 500,000 people, is starving. “Hunger is ravaging Gaza, and this is expected to increase illness across the Strip, most acutely among children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and older people,” the UN wrote in its report.
The UN reported that 93 percent of the population is facing “crisis levels of hunger,” while one in four households is facing “catastrophic conditions” of starvation. It concluded, “Starvation, destitution and death are evident.”