In Gaza, a Staggering Milestone

Eleven weeks of war have resulted in a jarring casualty count in Gaza: The health ministry there says the number of people killed is now over 20,000, reports Reuters. The chaos of war makes the number difficult to verify by independent sources, and both Israeli and US officials point out that the ministry is run by Hamas. But the Washington Post reports that the UN and the World Health Organization view the count as credible—and perhaps even too low—as do experts at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "The true death toll is probably higher than what's being reported because of difficulties verifying bodies buried under rubble and diminished capacity from the hospital system," Benjamin Q. Huynh tells the Post. Some context:

• The total represents nearly 1% of Gaza's pre-war population of 2.2 million, per the AP. The ministry says about 70% of the victims are Palestinian women and children. Another 50,000 have been injured.
• The total appears to be the highest of any Israeli-Arab conflict since the founding of Israel in 1948, including the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, reports the New York Times. "Some military experts said more people had been killed more quickly in this war than during the deadliest stages of the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan or Iraq," the story adds.
• The count reflects Israel's strategy of dropping massive bombs in heavily populated areas. A separate New York Times investigation found that Israel has routinely dropped 2,000-pound bombs on the enclave.
• A legal adviser to the Israeli Defense Forces tells Reuters the air force is carrying out "thousands and thousands of attacks and often attacks that require heavy firepower" because they're necessary to hit Hamas' sprawling underground network of tunnels. "Really tragically that results in a large number of civilian casualties," said the official. Israel's view is that unless Hamas is wiped out, a repeat of the brutal Oct. 7 raid, in which Israeli civilians were murdered, raped, and mutilated, will be repeated.
• By the BBC's count, about 300 people a day are being killed in Gaza. "What we're seeing in terms of civilian deaths has already far outpaced rates of harm from any given conflict we have documented," Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, which has monitored civilian deaths in wars since 2014, tells the outlet. From Neta C. Crawford of the Costs of War Project at Brown University comes a similar sentiment: "This is, in the 21st century, a significant and out-of-the-norm level of destruction," Crawford tells the Post.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that while most Palestinians hold Israel primarily responsible for the devastation, criticism of Hamas for bringing it upon the enclave is growing louder. That is particularly true in Gaza itself as opposed to areas more removed from the fighting such as the West Bank.

(More Israel-Hamas war stories.)