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The UN Human Rights Office announced this on Friday. almost 70% of the dead who confirmed that in the Gaza war there were women and childrenand condemned what it called systematic violations of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

United Nations (UN) tallies since the start of the war, in which the Israeli army is fighting Hamas militants, include only the death toll, which could be verified by three sources, and are not private.

8,119 victims confirmed by UN Human Rights over a seven-month period, there are far fewer than the more than 43,000 recorded by Palestinian health authorities during the 13-month conflict.

But UN data on the age and gender of victims supports the Palestinian claim that women and children make up a significant proportion of the war’s dead.

The finding points to a “systematic violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including selectivity and proportionality,” the UN Human Rights Office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.

“It is vital that allegations of serious violations of international law are given due consideration by credible and impartial judiciary bodies, and in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence is collected and preserved,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report’s findings.

The Israeli military, which launched the offensive in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 250 hostages, says it is careful not to harm civilians in the Gaza Strip.

The military says one civilian is killed for every militant and it blames Hamas for that, saying the Palestinian militant group is using civilian targets. Hamas denies using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.

Youngest victim in one day

Ajit Sungei, head of the U.N. human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva that the death toll included in the report was verified by three sources, including neighbors, family members, local NGOs, hospital records and U.N. staff. in the field.

“The numbers are of course huge compared to previous years, so we need time to catch up and verify them,” he said, adding that he believed the final UN tally would likely be similar to the Palestinian one.

According to the report, the youngest victim whose death was confirmed by UN observers was a one-day-old child, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman.

Overall, people under 18 years of age accounted for 44% of victims, with children aged five to nine years being the largest age category, followed by children aged 10 to 14 years and children under four years of age.

This broadly reflects the demographics of the enclave, which the report says reflect an apparent failure to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

According to the report, in 88% of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, indicating the Israeli army was using highly effective weapons, but it claimed that some casualties may have been caused by stray shells from Palestinian armed groups. .

Reuters