[Salon] Statement on Gaza Death Undercount



From the desk of Ralph Nader
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From the desk of Ralph Nader

For months I have been pointing out the vast undercount of deaths in Gaza under the Israeli Regime's daily bombardment of civilians and their infrastructure and suspension of food, water, medicine, electricity, fuel and lack of shelter and healthcare. These messages have been ignored by the mainstream media and the independent media.

Now, will the media alert itself to another source of probative data from an anthropologist, Yaakov Garb, of Ben-Gurion University in Israel? His academic analysis of aid distribution compound maps and data reveals an estimated Gaza population of 1.85 million—a precipitous decline from the pre-October 7th total of 2.227 million people. A permissible question inferred from these estimates is: Where are the missing 377,000 Palestinians?

Because of the siege, embargo and blockade that has made Gaza the world’s largest open air prison, it is likely that Palestinians who are missing are deceased. There is also a lot of probative evidence from many credible sources—eg. The Lancet, University of Edinburgh and other universities, UN agencies, and nonprofit relief organizations—that the self-serving vast death undercount of Hamas is in reality multiples larger. The only question is how many multiples. American doctors back from Gaza have related that most of the survivors, including babies and children, are either sick, injured, starving or dying.

Based on all these sources and the empirical and clinical evidence, it would not be surprising if the estimate has reached 500,000 deaths—or a little more than 1 out of 4—caused by Israel in this tiny enclave. That number is greater than the number of U.S. soldiers and sailors killed in World War II.

The mainstream media has plenty of material to dig into if they shed their indifference or ignorance or bias against the Palestinians. The mainstream media has no problem estimating the number of Syrians killed by the Assad regime or the number of lost lives in the Sudan or Ukraine. But somehow they give the Hamas undercount credibility? For different reasons both Hamas and Netanyahu like an undercount. They should not be so indulged. 

-Ralph Nader



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