Tehran Times – This week, an Israeli military spokesman said the regime has, so far, notified the families of 392 soldiers who have been killed, or as Daniel Hagari put it “fell in battles”. Nearly 10,000 Israelis have been injured since the war began, Hagari added.
According to Israeli news outlet Haaretz, citing Israeli army sources, more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers have been injured since the war on Gaza began.
An Israeli military statement confirmed the estimate by Haaretz, saying that “202 soldiers are in critical condition since the beginning of the war, and about 320 have sustained moderate injuries, in addition to 470 with mild injuries.”
Hundreds of Israeli troops remain in hospital. Yet the Israeli military has, for seven weeks, kept a tight lid on its casualty figures until Haaretz revealed a number whose source is the Israeli army.
However, experts believe the true number of Israeli soldiers killed and injured is far higher than what the regime is currently saying and that the Israeli military will substantially increase the real figure once the war is officially over.
The office of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says thousands of Hamas members have been killed but can’t say exactly how many.
At different points of the war, an Israeli military spokesperson regularly claimed thousands of Hamas members have been killed since the start of the war.
Two days ago, in a TV interview, Netanyahu’s spokesman, Eylon Levy, repeated that thousands of members of Hamas have been killed during the war.
Pressed by the TV presenter on how the Israeli military can identify between a Hamas member and a Palestinian civilian, Levy failed to provide a credible answer.
The reality is that the Israeli military and political leadership have absolutely no idea how many Hamas members have been killed in combat.
According to UN bodies and rights organizations, the most trusted number and the most accurate figure of Palestinians casualties are those that are released by the health ministry in Gaza.
The Gaza health ministry says that the death toll has so far reached around16,000 with about 35,000 wounded, and more than 6,000 missing.
On Monday, officials in Gaza broke down the numbers, citing the Palestinian health ministry.
In a statement, the Gaza-based Government Media Office said the death toll includes 6,150 children and 4,000 women.
But Save the Children said the true number of children killed so far is likely to be higher.
It added that there are also some 7,000 missing people under the rubble, including 4,700 children and women.
The statement noted that among the dead are 207 medical staff, 26 members of civil defense rescue teams, and 70 journalists.
More than 36,000 other Palestinians were also injured, 75 percent of them children and women, the office added.
As for residential buildings, it said nearly 50,000 housing units were completely destroyed in addition to nearly 240,000 house units severely damaged.
A total of 88 mosques have been completely destroyed, and 174 others were partially destroyed by the indiscriminate Israeli bombing campaign across Gaza in addition to three churches targeted by the Israeli army.
Out of 16,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks, more than 10,000 are women and children.
That leaves 6,000 Palestinians, of whom a significant number are elderly and civilian men.
According to experts, the true number of Hamas members killed during the war is estimated to be in the hundreds and not in the thousands.
There are believed to be as many as tens of thousands of resistance soldiers left from Hamas alone, let alone from the other Palestinian resistance factions.
There are believed to be as many as tens of thousands of resistance soldiers left from Hamas alone, let alone from the other Palestinian resistance factions.
They have thwarted Israeli ground forces trying to advance into northern Gaza from different directions, whilst inflicting heavy losses on the regime’s troops, tanks and other ground forces.
At the same time, the high number of the Palestinian resistance soldiers have not only survived the regime’s indiscriminate attacks but have also continued to fire rocket barrages and missiles across the occupied territories, with sirens sounding in Tel Aviv until the last moment of the temporary ceasefire.
This indicates Hamas and the other factions remain intact, powerful and in high spirits whilst demonstrating the failure of the regime’s attempt to destroy the Palestinian resistance, inspite of its unprecedented attacks.
Western leaders and media have repeatedly labeled the death and destruction in the Gaza Strip as an “Israeli-Hamas” war.
In reality it is not an “Israeli-Hamas” war as the West would like the world to believe.
This is a full-scale war on the residents of the Gaza Strip with the Israeli aim of occupying the enclave and taking full security control of it by either displacing its people or leaving them to die from diseases.
It has now been widely documented that the rate of civilian deaths in Gaza during the Israeli war is outpacing those of other conflict zones in the 21st century.
There are reports of the spread of diseases. Also, humanitarian organizations are unanimous that temporary reprieve of aid is not nearly enough.
The weather is worsening and winter is coming; Gaza’s health services are on the verge of collapse, if they have not collapsed already following Israeli attacks on hospitals. The regime’s military is also halting critically needed medical supplies to enter Gaza.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that more Palestinians could die from diseases than from bombings in Gaza if its health system is not repaired.
“Eventually, we will see more people dying from disease than from bombardment if we are not able to put back together this health system,” WHO’s Margaret Harris said.
She described the collapse of al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza as a “tragedy” and voiced concern about the detention of some of its medical staff by Israeli forces.
The prospect of Israel resuming operations and moving tanks and troops to the south of Gaza is triggering deep alarm among international organisations.
The Israelis had already ordered the residents of northern Gaza to head south for their own safety.
Now, the regime has strongly hinted that it wants to move its tanks and ground forces to the south of Gaza in a similar manner to how it displaced residents in the north by indiscriminately bombing residential areas.
This is why Palestinians need Hamas to protect their territory from Israeli occupation in the south as it successfully protected Palestinian territory from Israeli occupation in the north.
This is why it is an Israeli war on Gaza and not Hamas. Hamas is defending the Gazan territory from Israeli occupation.
The Israeli military cannot wage war on the resistance group. It won’t achieve its stated goal of “wiping out” the group, having spent seven weeks trying and failing miserably to do so. There is no doubt that the Israeli military is waging a war on the people of the Gaza Strip.
by Ali Karbalaei
