"Female and Child Deaths in Gaza Strip Twice the Number in 2 Years of Ukraine War"

Analysis suggests that the number of women and children killed in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli airstrikes has surpassed 10,000. Even conservative estimates show that the death toll of women (around 4,000) and children (6,150) is more than twice the number of women and children casualties in the 1 year and 9 months of the Ukraine war.

On the 25th (local time), The New York Times (NYT) analyzed that the rate of increase in civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip during Israeli airstrikes is exceptionally high, unprecedented in the 21st century. Neta Crawford, a modern warfare expert and professor at Brown University in the U.S., pointed out that the scale of deaths caused by Israeli airstrikes is approaching 12,400 U.S. military deaths in the nearly 20-year-long Afghanistan war, saying, "It is more than other wars in a very short period."

Although the majority of Hamas militants are male, the United Nations and others have stated that women and children account for 69% of the total deaths in the Gaza Strip in this war. Considering past conflicts between Israel and Hamas, where this ratio was 41% during the 2021 clashes, 38% in the 2014 war, and 39% in the 2008?2009 war, Rick Brennan, WHO's Eastern Mediterranean regional officer, said this is an "exceptional statistic" contrary to usual trends.

On the second day of the temporary ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian armed faction Hamas on the 25th (local time), residents in the northern Gaza Strip are passing by houses damaged by Israeli attacks.
[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

NYT cited the background for this unprecedented scale of deaths as the Israeli military conducting massive airstrikes using ultra-large bombs in the densely populated and narrow Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has stated that it has targeted more than 15,000 locations within the Gaza Strip during this war.

According to an anonymous senior U.S. military official, about 90% of the bombs dropped by the Israeli military on the Gaza Strip during the first two weeks of the conflict were large satellite-guided bombs weighing between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds (approximately 454 to 907 kg).

In fact, on the 31st of last month, the Israeli military used at least two 2,000-pound bombs in an airstrike on Jabalia, the largest refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. According to Airwars, a UK conflict monitoring organization, at least 126 civilians were killed, more than half of whom were children, as confirmed by their own investigation.

Experts have pointed out that it is astonishing that the Israeli military freely uses 2,000-pound ultra-large bombs capable of collapsing apartment buildings in densely populated urban areas.

The U.S. military, in past battles against the Islamic State (IS) in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria, used the most common 500-pound (about 227 kg) bombs but later assessed them as excessively large. The size of the bombs used by the Israeli military is four times that.

A convoy carrying Israeli hostages released by the Palestinian armed group Hamas in the Gaza Strip arrived at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan on the 26th (local time). Hamas released 13 Israelis and 4 Thais who had been held hostage on the second day of the temporary ceasefire. [Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

Marc Garlasco, a former senior intelligence analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense, said, "Nothing I have seen in my career has surpassed this," and pointed out that to find a similar case of massive use of ultra-large bombs in such a small area, one would have to go back to the Vietnam War or World War II.

Brian Castner, a former U.S. Air Force explosive ordnance disposal technician and weapons investigator at Amnesty International (AI), also evaluated, "They are using ultra-large weapons in an extremely densely populated area," calling it "possibly the worst combination of multiple factors."

Moreover, unlike the wars in Ukraine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which involved nationwide combat, the Gaza Strip is very small and all its borders are sealed, leaving civilians with no safe place to evacuate. Although the Israeli military previously announced that civilians in northern Gaza should evacuate southward, airstrikes continue in southern Gaza and other areas.

Castner also pointed out that Israel appears to be conducting airstrikes at a pace too fast to minimize civilian casualties. Normally, before executing airstrikes, a process is undertaken to determine whether civilians reside in the target buildings, but the Israeli military is conducting multiple airstrikes in a short period, making "(this) impossible," Castner emphasized.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.