Gaza daily deaths exceed all other major conflicts in 21st century: Oxfam

Human Rights Watch also says Israel’s war has included ‘acts of collective punishment that amount to war crimes’.

The killing of civilians in Gaza is at a scale unprecedented in recent history, monitoring groups have said, as Israel continues to pound the besieged coastal enclave more than three months into the war.

Britain-based charity Oxfam said on Thursday that the daily death toll of Palestinians in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses that of any other major conflict in the 21st century, while survivors remain at high risk due to hunger, diseases and cold, as well as ongoing Israeli bombardments.

“Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years,” Oxfam said in a statement.

For comparison, the charity provided a list of average deaths per day in other conflicts since the turn of the century: 96.5 in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen.

Oxfam said the crisis is further compounded by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza, where only 10 percent of weekly food aid that is needed gets in. This poses a serious risk of starvation for those who survive the relentless bombardment, it said.