https://arab.news/r8csn
- Palestinian casualties identified by Airwars researchers using local data, social media
- 37.7% of recorded victims were children, 23.5% were women
LONDON: Nearly 3,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza have been identified by an independent monitor.
UK-based organization Airwars, which assesses the impact on civilians in conflicts worldwide, analyzed almost 346 incidents in the first 17 days of the war, naming 2,993 victims of Israeli attacks.
It included 65 people killed in an airstrike on the Jabalia refugee camp on Oct. 9, the most deadly event of the campaign’s early days.
Investigators used evidence including social media posts to identify the dead, including 19-year-old Imad Hamad after his father Ziyad posted on Facebook that his son had died while out buying bread.
“To lose my son, to lose my house, to sleep on the floor of a classroom? My children are wetting themselves, of panic, of fear, of cold. We have nothing to do with this. What fault did we commit? I raised my child, my entire life, for what? To see him die while buying bread,” Ziyad posted.
Emily Tripp, director of Airwars, said: “Militaries often tell us it is impossible to know who has been killed and how — but one of our key messages is to show that it is possible. The only thing holding us back is the size of our teams.”
She added: “Our job is to act as a bridge between chaos and justice, to serve civilian victims of military action around the world. We see what we are doing as essential initial work before further investigations can be done.”
As well as the attack on Jabalia, Airwars identified several other high-casualty attacks, including at Al-Taj and the Nuseirat refugee camp.
“Prior to this conflict, it was very rare to find cases where there were more than 10 civilians killed,” Tripp said.
“But here, suddenly, we found that in a third of our cases, there were reports of 10 civilians killed.” She added: “We know how and when each person was killed.”
In total, 37.7 percent of recorded victims were children and 23.5 percent were women.
In the early days of the war, Gaza’s health authorities said as many as 7,000 people were killed by Israeli attacks, which Airwars said it believes to have been reasonably accurate.
Tripp said: “It is possible to believe the (Ministry of Health) figures, and you don’t have to wait many years to be sure.”
However, as the war has endured, the ability of authorities to tally casualties has broken down as infrastructure comes under ever-increasing strain, with hospitals and morgues overwhelmed.
Airwars says it has logged over 4,450 incidents since the start of the war, but has only been able to asses 550 so far, with its team of investigators numbering just 10-15.