IDF confirms some 70,000 Gazans died in war, none from starvation.

[Twiglets1]

Article in The Jerusalem Post:

The IDF, for the first time on Wednesday, confirmed that approximately 70,000 Gazans were killed during the Israel-Hamas War, while disputing the percentage of civilian deaths claimed by the UN and declaring that no healthy persons died from starvation.

While various international groups have claimed that the overwhelming majority of those who died were civilians, the IDF continues to contest that number and has said that around 25,000 were Hamas terrorists. Further, the IDF has presented evidence that, through early 2024 – the period when Hamas was firing large daily rocket salvos – around 13% of their rockets were misfires, leading to the killing of many Palestinians.

There have also been other periods of time where Hamas executed large numbers of Palestinians whom it viewed as political opponents or civilians whom it was trying to prevent from fleeing an area that the IDF said needed to be evacuated. While the IDF said on Thursday that it is working on a fuller evaluation of the breakdown of civilians to combatants and estimates of those killed by Hamas, no Israeli official has provided a set estimate on that to date.

No date was given for when this breakdown will be publicized, suggesting that it will not be in the near future.

Estimates by international organizations and some media have said that as many as around 450 Palestinians have died of starvation, but the IDF on Thursday said these numbers are a mix of fake statistics or include persons who suffered from dangerous health conditions prior to the war.

IDF sources noted cases where they spoke to humanitarian aid officials who claimed that two specific children had died, but the military was able to quickly establish that they were actually still alive.

There were also multiple other cases in which the global media graphically documented children whose bodies appeared contorted and who eventually died, with the military later clarifying that they had serious pre-war health conditions that had already caused their distorted-looking appearance.

The IDF has not given a more detailed, comprehensive counter-claim regarding the list of persons the UN claims starved to death, but is expected to give significant information confidentially to the International Court of Justice on March 12.

More broadly, the IDF has said that UN aid officials in the field have admitted that their headquarters political bosses invented or exaggerated the food insecurity in Gaza in order to pressure Israel into ending the war earlier. IDF officials have also admitted that there was a food insecurity crisis in July-August 2025, but said they acted rapidly enough at the time in increasing the volume of food aid trucks to avoid a starvation crisis.

According to the IDF, throughout the war, 112,000 aid trucks were brought into Gaza, including 1,700,000 tons of food, as well as 1,800,000 tents and tarpaulin covers. During this time, 600,000 children received polio vaccinations.

Currently, 16 field hospitals are operating, and over the course of the war, 9,600 tons of medical items have been brought into Gaza.

During the same period, 5,000 international aid workers entered the Strip, while 42,000 Gazans exited to a third country to receive health treatment or travel using their dual citizenship status.

www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-884905

Interesting how Israel clocked up more UN resolutions that say North Korea or Iran. Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their lack of bias.

And if my nearest neighbour had repeatedly announced its plan to genocide me, I'd go hard on the border too.

I certainly wouldn't just die quietly because the UN wrung its impotent hands.

A sure sign of the number of humans rights abuses that have been carried out over the length of the illegal Occupation.

If you think Israel were just at the border and not a pervasive entity throughout every part of Palestinian life there really is no point in continuing a discussion with you because your bias is clouding the facts .

It's antisemitism and anti-Westernism, that's why.

Course it is

I think the IDF numbers can’t be trusted nor can those provided by Hamas.

I think the truth is the true death toll will never be known.

Are Hamas evil pieces of shit and should they be gone, yes

Was October 7th absolutely abhorrent, yes

Was the scale of retaliation by Netanyahu and the IDF appalling, yes

Do I think Netanyahu and some members of the IDF are evil pieces of shit also, yes

Innocent people died and are suffering on both sides, why are they so dehumanised?

Some people blame Hamas and some people blame Netanyahu they are both war criminals, power hungry men out for their own gain, neither of them care about civilians. Imo of course

A sure sign of the number of humans rights abuses that have been carried out

That is ludicrous. You think the number of UN resolutions against a country is a “sure sign” to the number of human rights abuses there?

Since 2006, the human rights council has passed more condemning resolution against Israel than all other countries in the world put together.

UNGA in a typical year passes 1 to 3 times as many condemnations of Israel as of all other countries in the world put together.

That’s like getting your news from Stormfront, noticing it’s always the Jews who are screwing us over, and thinking “yeah, sounds about right. Nothing odd about this.”

Which of the resolutions were not justified?
Because a quick read through them seems legit.

I think it’s quite clear what pp means - it’s not about whether or not individual resolutions were justified, but about why other countries with more than questionable human rights records have been targeted much less and what that says about the credibility of the institution issuing said resolutions.

How does the following Google data make sense:

As of late 2025, the UNHRC has adopted approximately 112 resolutions against Israel. For comparison, other frequently condemned countries have significantly lower totals: Syria (45), Iran (16), and Russia (11).

I can’t really see how your response e
relates to mine.

There are lots of wars where combatants didn’t wear a uniform. Look at the Afghan wars. This doesn’t make it ok - it’s completely against international law for fighters to not identity themselves.

But it also doesn’t mean that it is ok to cause a food crisis.

And of course the rules of war don’t assume that the combatants will protect their own people … I don’t understand why you make stuff up like this.

Yes; the UNHRC had plenty of criticism for its strong anti-Israel bias long before the Gaza conflict. This article, for examples, dates from July 2023.

The current Wikipedia entry on the UNHRC mentions that "A Reuters report in 2008 said that independent human rights groups say that UNHRC is being controlled by some Middle East and African nations, supported by China, Russia and Cuba, which protect each other from criticism."

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/human-rights-council/

Oh come on that is so easy to disprove. The number of resolutions against Israel is wildly disproportionate. Even if you think the resolutions are legitimate, the question remains why there are not more resolutions against other regimes. . Im amazed you would even attempt to make that argument.

16 resolutions against Iran. The country that rapes virgins in order to justify their execution. That has the highest execution rate in the world, including under 18s. Extra judicial killings, high rates of deaths in custody, murders of journalists, restrictions on freedom of speech. Persecution of gay people, religious and ethinic minorities, gender apartheid.

Rule 1 is The parties to the conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants. Attacks may only be directed against combatants. Attacks must not be directed against civilians.

Implicit in that, surely, is being able to tell the difference, rather than that being deliberately obscured?

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule1

(Edited to add: But you're right, I've no idea why I quoted you! 🫢🤡 sorry)

Israel is the only country with a standing agenda item (Agenda Item 7), requiring debate at every session. This is not done for any other state.

Insane. The only democracy in the Middle East, whatever its flaws.

Ok so the argument is not that Israel has not committed multiple Human Rights abuses rather that other countries that have are not subject to the same scrutiny. That's fair enough every single country that abuses people should be pulled up on every occasion.

Some of it's 'flaws' off the top of my head - Illegal occupation of multiple territories, apartheid and racial segregation, holding children in military custody, raping children in military custody, aiding and abetting terrorism, murder of activists, murder of journalists, forced displacement, arbitrary indefinite detention without due process, torture, movement restrictions, home demolitions, violent suppression of protests, lethal force used in arrests, illegal land seizures, perdify, attacking UN facilities, attacking UN missions.

So, why do you think they aren't? And do you have faith in a system with such an obviously, incontrovertibly deep level of bias? Is it plausible that all those resolutions are in fact legitimate when the same people can't bring themselves to pass resolutions against Iran? Do you think that's really a convincing position?

As explained, I took a short cut using Copilot because I was heading out, but felt such a "grrr" reaction that I wanted to post anyway. (I'm sure many of us can relate to that on the CITME forum!) Anyway, now I'm back and can dazzle with my usual erudition 🤣🤣🤣

The point I was making is that drawing a parallel with the Irish War of Independence is problematic for a gazillion reasons, not least that it overlooks Hamas's motives and the severity of the threat faced by Israel.

If you view it all through the lens of brave resistance to colonial oppression, and can't tell the difference between people voluntarily hiding combatants versus combatants deliberately exposing citizens to risk, then I fear you have bought Hamas's propaganda hook, line and sinker.

But neither of us is saying anything new. God, how many times have we had this discussion on various threads?! 🤡 At least we're not wasting a sunny day, but I should probably be cleaning the bathroom 🌞

No it’s not implicit in that. This rule of distinction doesn’t depend on uniforms at all. There is other wording in IHL that further clarifies this.

Quoting international law isn’t a good road to go down if you are attempting to defend the number civilians killed by Israel.

Because I’d believe anything the IDF says.

Do you think this particular war will force them to revise the rules? Otherwise they seem rather meaningless.

Loads of people don’t know what an atrocity is. They say oh that’s war. It’s awful and brutal but it’s just way war is.

Read more history then. This war was conducted as a siege, where all civilians were trapped inside an urban area with the combatants.

Lots of wars involved combatants without uniforms so your question doesn’t really make sense.

International law is becoming meaningless now. Gaza has been part of that due to western powers being complicit with Israel. But the US going the way it is, is the biggest driver.

So I think future wars will be more catastrophic with more civilian suffering. So you’ll be happy to know that there likely be few attempts to protect civilian life in future.