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Twice as many women and children have been killed in Gaza in barely two months, as in Ukraine during almost two years of war.
An important reason is that Israel drops large bombs on densely populated areas.
– This is worse than anything else I’ve seen in my career, says expert Marc Garlasco.
The death rate is historically high in Gaza, according to a review by The New York Times newspaper.
In barely two months, around 10,000 women and children have been killed. Although the figure comes from Gaza’s health ministry, it is credible, according to several experts The New York Times spoke to.
That is more than double the number of women and children killed in Ukraine since February 24, 2022, and approaches the 12,400 civilians killed by the US military in Afghanistan during 20 years of war.
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In barely two months, around 10,000 women and children have been killed in Gaza.
1 / 2Photo: Leo Correa / AP
Experts are surprised that the Israeli army is using 900-kilogram bombs that can level high-rise buildings to the ground, in such a densely populated area.
According to Marc Garlasco, military adviser at the Dutch peace organization Pax and former analyst at the US Department of Defense, we have to go back to the Vietnam War or World War II to find similar use of heavy bombs in densely populated areas.
– This is worse than anything else I’ve seen in my career, he says to The New York Times.
More children have been killed in Gaza than in any other conflict zone on earth in the past year, according to UN lists of verified child deaths in armed conflicts. Over 60,000 buildings have been damaged or completely destroyed in Gaza:
– They use extremely large weapons in extremely densely populated areas. It is the worst combination, says Brian Castner, weapons investigator at Amnesty International to the American newspaper.
By way of comparison, the US Army considered that not even half the size of bombs used by the Israelis – at 450 kilograms instead of 900 kilograms – could be used in the cities of Mosul and Raqqa in the fight against the Islamic State.
The Israeli army claims it is using the “least possible materiel” to produce “minimal adverse effects on civilians”, and claims the civilian deaths in Gaza are a regrettable but unavoidable part of modern warfare.