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

Israel 'suggested' that the casualty figures were lies for over 2 years, the press were denigrated, called untrustworthy and were accused of spreading terrorist propaganda for repeating what Israel are now saying were the correct figures all along. Now people are supposed to find it a positive thing that Israel are once again 'suggesting' that they didn't harm people, that it is all just lies and propaganda? What's that saying, fool me once....

I find it a very odd term to choose to use so I was hoping you would explain your choice of phrase, clearly you feel too uncomfortable to do so.

It's a well known term that has been used on MN hundreds of times so you suddenly asking me to explain it to you makes no sense.

I can't really fathom how a regular poster doesn't understand a commonly used term.

I don’t buy that you gave 116 UNHCR resolutions and hundreds of UNGA resolutions “a quick read over” between my post and your reply.

No-one can be an expert in every detail.

That’s why it matters whether the institutions you take your lead from are unbiased or at least attempting it.

UN resolutions are a political matter, by institutional design, and the UN is as unbiased as Stormfront on this issue.

e.g. 16 resolutions condemning Israel for environmental damage to Lebanon’s shores, arising from one incident in one war that Hezbollah (in Lebanon) started by invading Israel. No condemnation of environmental damage from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets. No matter that Israel (but not Hezbollah) worked with the UN on cleanup. No matter that this is a body, UNGA, that has issued zero condemnations ever of China, despite the fact it runs the largest mass internment of any minority anywhere since WWII (of Muslims, who don’t seem to matter if Israel isn’t involved).

So if you think that someone who is pro Palestinian is anti Israel. Do you consider yourself anti Palestinian?

like I said it’s completely meaningless to say that “no healthy person died from starvation” in this context.

In a food crisis, even a very severe one like Gaza was in, the vast majority of deaths will be children and other vulnerable people from illness. Usually normal childhood illnesses that normally would be survivable if the person wasn’t malnourished.

Yeah. The country trying to push through a law that if a Palestinian kills an Israeli then they can receive the death penalty, and yet if an Israeli kills a Palestinian…..

Israel has only executed one person in its history (Eichman), so a pretty good record, especially as it has been subjected to such sustained terrorism. In 2024, the five countries that executed the most people were China (over 1000), Iran (at least 972) Saudi Arabia (345), Iraq and Yemen. I think last year the record was held by Iran. The proposed law is for Palestinians convicted of terrorism - not perhaps surprising in the wake of 7 October and Hamas's continued refusal to disarm. But anyway the proposal is going through normal democratic process and is the subject of heated debate as you'd expect in a very active democracy. For the record I oppose the death penalty in all circumstances.

2 actually. But lets not split hairs.

The point being that it’s a two tiered system. Why only have the death penalty for one religion and not the other in this so called democratic country that should be treating all its citizens equally.

But good on you for not supporting the death penalty.

I really don’t like the asymmetry there either.

But talking of asymmetry: Palestinian law (Jordanian law, reaffirmed to the present by the PA) mandates death, or life imprisonment with hard labour, for selling land to an Israeli.

The death sentence for murder, or death for selling land?

There are no Jews in Gaza, or in almost all neighbouring states, because they were driven out everywhere on explicitly racial grounds, in countries that are various degrees of authoritarian/theocracy.

Meanwhile Israel built a multi-ethnic state with democracy and full civic participation
for Arabs and other minorities. The judge who jailed Olmert (prime minister) was an Arab, for example.

You can’t look at those two models and say ‘it’s team racist authoritarian theocracy for me’, surely? None of that means being uncritical of Israel or its leadership or its actions.

I don’t think they get to sell their land do they? They just get it stolen these days.

Exactly.

One reason they don’t might be the death penalty for doing so.

I don’t like the behaviour of many settlers, which in many cases is murderous and is often provocative.

But there’s a really crucial bigger picture here:

Firstly, this is land won by Israel in a defensive war. The borders moved becuase six countries ganged up on Israel in an attempt to destroy it and they lost.

Many borders in the world are there because of war. This is the most defensible possible type of war (a defensive one for national survival) and that’s the one we are all meant to agree doesn’t really count because the wrong side (the aggressors) lost?

I’m not Jewish or Israeli but that is a nonsense standard we don’t uphold anywhere else. It’s wrong and its perpetualisation is for racist reasons.

Second, the Westerners who declaim the settlers’ racist violence the most are often (and I am certain there are honourable exceptions) those who then wrap themselves in the flag of one of the most explicitly racist and violent regimes in the world.

Like, sure, I’ll agree that there’s a lot of work still to be done to improve race relations in the US, but I wouldn’t be taking any lessons on it from people wrapped in the KKK banner. The kind of racial harmony they have in mind is a pretty sinister one.

Who was the second after Eichman?

What a lot of words to basically say you support the illegal settlers and despise the Palestinian flag and anyone that displays it and you compare it to the KKK!! Wow that's a new one on me.

It’s not fair to equate the Palestinian flag with terrorism. The Palestinian flag and other symbols also supports the right of Palestinians to have their own country.

The bigger picture is that this border situation hasn’t been resolved. And that over decades the settlements are growing in the West Bank. So there has never really been a political settlement here.

If these point are new to you, I suggest you aren’t very well versed in the subject, or have never really questioned your own position.

Which other lands in the entire world, won in a defensive war, do we continue to treat as ‘illegal’?

What’s your objection to the KKK? Mine is that: I) it is founded on an explicitly racial/religious supremacist ideology, and believes the land should be cleansed of the enemy race(s), and ii) it uses violence to actually make that happen. Both those statements unequivocally apply to Palestine proto-state.

The difference between you and me, it seems, is that I’m against i and ii in all cases, while you’re happy to see excuses when it’s ‘your’ team.

I think there are many people (especially in the West) who are sincere when they use the Palestinian flag to mean that only. But sadly I don’t think it’s perhaps even a majority (as in, I don’t think the centre of gravity of the UK pro-Palestine movement is anti-Hamas in a meaningful way. I accept an honourable minority, perhaps a large minority, is. But I’ve almost never seen anti-Hamas banners at Palestine marches and I’ve seen video of various examples of people being isolated for having them. Peter Tatchell was one recent example).

To me, it’s perhaps like the Confederate flag, but if that flag
were still the flag of the racist Sourhern states. Yes, if’s technically possible to fly that flag and not mean it in support of the ideology. But it makes
me very wary. Ditto you could put the shahada on a flag and not be an Islamist, but I’m going to be cautious.

What’s your objection to the KKK? Mine is that: I) it is founded on an explicitly racial/religious supremacist ideology, and believes the land should be cleansed of the enemy race(s), and ii) it uses violence to actually make that happen. Both those statements unequivocally apply to Palestine proto-state.

Palestine isn't the first place that came to mind when I read this.....

Ok, go on.

Certainly Palestine counts, as, sadly, do quite a few other countries.

Which sprang to mind first?

I don’t have a problem with Peter Tatchell myself.

But I don’t agree with your flag argument: the confederate flag was the flag of the confederacy whose central point of existence was about keeping slavery legal.

The Palestinian flag is about national identity. It is also hijacked by terrorists.

So I honestly don’t see the co-relation.

I’m Irish and the Irish flag was used by terrorists but it doesn’t stand for terrorism. In fact it’s meaning is the opposite of this.

The St George’s cross has also been hijacked by far right racist groups but I don’t think it is inherently racist in itself. It is centuries old.

It’s all about the context really.