Geneva:

Palestinian health authorities say Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 38,000 people, mostly civilians, and driven most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people from their homes.

The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas operatives rushed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the operatives killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and dragged 253 into captivity in Gaza.

This explainer examines how the Palestinian death count is calculated, how reliable it is, the breakdown of civilians and fighters killed and what each side says.

HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH COUNT?

In the first months of the war, death counts were calculated entirely from counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed.

As the conflict ground on, and fewer hospitals and morgues continued to operate, the authorities adopted other methods too.

From early May, the Health Ministry updated its breakdown of total fatalities to include unidentified bodies which account for nearly a third of the overall deaths. Omar Hussein Ali, head of the ministry’s emergency operations centre in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said these were bodies that had arrived at hospitals or medical centres without personal data such as identity numbers or full names.

It also began including deaths reported online by family members who had to input information including identity numbers.

IS THE GAZA DEATH COUNT COMPREHENSIVE?

The numbers “do not necessarily reflect all victims due to the fact that many victims are still missing under the rubble”, the Palestinian Health Ministry says. In May it estimated that some 10,000 bodies were uncounted in this way.

The Lancet medical journal published a letter from three academics on July 5 estimating that indirect deaths, caused by factors such as disease, might mean the death count is several times higher than official Palestinian estimates.

The letter said it was “not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”.

The authors said the figure, which made global headlines, was based on what they said was the conservative estimate of four indirect deaths to one direct death based on trends from prior conflicts.

The U.N. human rights office and the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health have also said during the conflict that the true figures are likely higher than those published, without giving specifics.

HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH COUNT?

Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.

A spokesperson for the World Health Organisation said the ministry has “good capacity in data collection/analysis and its previous reporting has been considered credible”.

The United Nations regularly cites the ministry’s death count figures, while naming the ministry as the source.

Early in the conflict, after U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on casualty figures, the health ministry published a detailed list of the 7,028 deaths that had been registered by that point.

Academics looking at details of listed casualties said in a peer-reviewed article in the Lancet medical journal in November that it was implausible that the patterns shown in the list could be the result of fabrication.

However, there are specific questions over the inclusion of 471 people said to have been killed in an Oct. 17 blast at al-Ahli al-Arab hospital in Gaza City. An unclassified U.S. intelligence report estimated that death count “at the low end of the 100 to 300 spectrum”.

DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES?

While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave’s Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority still pays the salaries of those hired before then.

The extent of Hamas control in Gaza now is difficult to assess with Israeli forces occupying most of the territory, including around locations of major hospitals that provide casualty figures, and with fighting ongoing.

WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY?

Israeli officials have said the figures are suspect because of Hamas’ control over government in Gaza. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Mamorstein said the numbers were manipulated and “do not reflect the reality on the ground”.

However, Israel’s military has also accepted in briefings that the overall Gaza casualty numbers are broadly reliable.

In May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 14,000 Hamas fighters and 16,000 Palestinian civilians had been killed in the war.

HOW MANY CIVILIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED?

The Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification.

Israel periodically provides estimates of how many Hamas fighters it believes have been killed. The most recent was Netanyahu’s estimate of 14,000.

Israeli security officials say such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed.

Hamas has said Israeli estimates for its losses are exaggerated but has not said how many of its fighters have been killed.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says more than 70% of the dead are women and children. For most of the conflict its figures showed children as representing slightly over 40% of all those killed.

However, conditions in hospitals compiling figures have worsened amid the fighting and many of those killed may not be identifiable due to their injuries.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinian Territories:

Hamas on Thursday called for an end to airdrops of aid after two Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza when a aid pallet crashed into a warehouse after its parachute failed to open.

Several countries, including the United States, Britain and France, have resorted to regular aid airdrops in northern Gaza, where humanitarian agencies have warned of a looming famine.

On Tuesday, two people died when an aid parachute fell on the roof of a warehouse where residents had gathered to collect relief supplies.

The latest fatalities take to at least 21 the number of people killed when airdrops of aid have gone disastrously wrong, according to the Hamas authorities.

“We reiterate that airdrops pose a real danger to the lives of citizens and do not provide a real solution to alleviate the food crisis plaguing northern Gaza,” Salama Marouf, head of the government’s media office in Gaza, said in a statement.

“We call for an immediate halt to the delivery of aid in this ineffective and erroneous manner, and we call for the full activation of the land crossings to deliver humanitarian aid to northern Gaza.”

With only a trickle of aid reaching the starving north and the United Nations warning of “imminent famine”, foreign governments have turned to airdrops to get aid into the territory.

Aid agencies say the situation has deteriorated this week after Israeli forces closed the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after taking control of it.

Relief also has not been transferred into Gaza through the other main crossing between Israel and the Palestinian territory, Kerem Shalom, after it came under rocket fire three times since Sunday.

Meanwhile, a US container ship loaded with aid for Gaza left Cyprus Thursday in a new test of a maritime corridor to get relief into the besieged territory.

The US-flagged MV Sagamore left the port of Larnaca after being loaded with aid from Britain, Cyprus and the United States, Cyprus government spokesperson Yiannis Antoniou told the official CNA news agency.

US military engineers have been assembling a temporary pier for installation on the Gaza coast to unload maritime aid deliveries.

UN agencies and humanitarian aid groups have warned that maritime deliveries and airdrops cannot deliver aid in the quantities needed to avert acute food shortages for the 2.4 million people across Gaza.

Gaza has been devastated by the war which started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,904 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

A full ceasefire in Gaza would only help Hamas as Israel wages an air campaign against the militant group, but humanitarian “pauses” should be considered to let vital aid in, the White House said Tuesday.

The comments came as President Joe Biden said aid deliveries to the Palestinian enclave, under Israeli bombardment since the deadly Hamas attacks of October 7, were “not fast enough.”

“A ceasefire right now really only benefits Hamas,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists.

Thousands of people have been killed on both sides since Hamas attacked across the border, executing civilians and seizing hostages, with Israel retaliating with relentless strikes on the Gaza Strip.

UN chief Antonio Guterres earlier Tuesday urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as European Union leaders were considering a call for a pause in the fighting.

Kirby said that while Washington opposed a full ceasefire, stoppages in the fighting to facilitate the delivery of aid was “something that ought to be considered.”

“We want to see all measure of protection for civilians and pauses in an operation is a tool and a tactic that can do that for temporary periods of time,” he said.

“It’s not the same as saying a ceasefire.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier asked the UN Security Council to support a new US-led resolution on the conflict that would back “humanitarian pauses” to let in aid but not a full ceasefire.

Biden said Monday that “talk” about any ceasefire could only start once all of the more than 200 hostages taken by Hamas in the attack were released. 

Kirby meanwhile warned that while the United States had urged Israel to minimize civilian casualties, some were inevitable.

“This is war. It is combat. It is bloody, ugly and it’s going to be messy and innocent civilians are going to be hurt going forward,” Kirby said.

“I wish I could tell you something different and wish that there wasn’t going to happen, but it is going to happen. And that doesn’t make it right, doesn’t make it dismissible.”

Israel was left stunned and furious by the bloody attack on southern communities in which it says Hamas killed more than 1,400 people and took the hostages, including some Americans.

Israel has responded with heavy air and artillery strikes that have killed 5,791 in Gaza, according to the Hamas-ruled health ministry, and plunged the Palestinian territory into a dire humanitarian crisis.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cairo:

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for war-torn and besieged Gaza started passing into the Rafah border crossing from Egypt Saturday, a security source and an Egyptian Red Crescent official told AFP.

Egyptian state television showed several trucks entering the gate on the 15th day of the war between Israel and Hamas, the militant movement which rules the Palestinian enclave of 2.4 million people.

Israel has been bombing Gaza since Hamas’ bloody surprise attack of October 7.

The Islamist group stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death on the first day of the raid, according to Israeli officials, also taking more than 200 people hostage.

Israel has declared a total siege on Gaza and cut off supplies of water, electricity, fuel and food, creating chronic shortages.

Rafah is the only route into Gaza that is not controlled by Israel, which agreed to allow aid in from Egypt following a request from its top ally the United States.

Twenty trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent, which is responsible for delivering aid from various UN agencies, entered the Egyptian terminal, an AFP correspondent said.

An AFP journalist on the Palestinian side of the crossing saw 36 empty trailers entering into the terminal and heading towards the Egyptian side, where they were to be loaded with the incoming aid.

Four ambulances, two UN vehicles and two Red Cross vehicles were also seen heading into the terminal.

Cargo planes and trucks have been bringing humanitarian aid to the Egyptian side of Rafah for days, but so far none has been delivered to Gaza.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday visited the Egyptian side of the crossing to oversee preparations for the aid delivery.

“These trucks are not just trucks, they are a lifeline,” he said. “They are the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Gaza:

Trucks stuffed with international aid for Gaza should be rolling “in the next day or so,” the United Nations said Friday, with Palestinians desperate for life-saving supplies after relentless bombing from Israel, still reeling from its bloodiest-ever attack.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the Islamist militant group launched an unprecedented raid from the Gaza Strip on October 7, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians who were shot, mutilated or burned to death, according to Israeli officials.

Hamas gunmen also kidnapped nearly 200 hostages including foreigners from around two dozen countries ranging from Paraguay to Tanzania.

In response, Israeli warplanes have levelled entire city blocks in Gaza in preparation for a ground invasion they say is coming soon. More than 3,785 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in the bombing, according to the latest toll from the Hamas-run health ministry.

The United Nations says more than one million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people are displaced and that the humanitarian situation is deteriorating daily.

A spokesman for UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told reporters in Geneva they were in “deep and advanced negotiations” with all sides to ensure aid moves “as quickly as possible.”

“A first delivery is due to start in the next day or so.”

Medicine, water purifiers and blankets were being unloaded at El Arish airport near Gaza, an AFP reporter saw, with Ahmed Ali, head of the Egyptian Red Crescent, saying he was getting “two to three planes of aid a day”.

The situation inside Gaza is “beyond catastrophic”, said Sara Alzawqari, UNICEF spokeswoman for the Gulf. “Time is running out and the numbers of casualties amongst children are rising.”

Egyptian state-linked broadcaster Al Qahera News had said the Rafah crossing — the only route into Gaza — would open Friday, but Cairo has said it needed more time to repair roads.

Raising some hope aid could soon flow, Egypt has removed concrete blocks on the only route into Gaza, a security source told AFP.

Egypt is still fixing bomb-damaged roads and on Friday “vehicles and Egyptian equipment went in to repair the road on the Palestinian side”, witnesses told AFP.

The World Health Organization’s emergencies director has called a deal struck by US President Joe Biden to allow in 20 trucks “a drop in the ocean of need”.

“It should be 2,000 trucks,” said Michael Ryan.

‘Harsh blows’

Within Israel, still coming to terms with the deadliest attack in its 75-year history, the drumbeat of war was growing louder, as leaders rallied troops for a ground offensive.

Clad in body armour, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embraced front-line troops near Gaza, urging them to “fight like lions” and “win with full force”.

Fists clenched and voice raised, Netanyahu told cheering soldiers: “We will deal harsh blows to our enemies in order to achieve victory.”

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also toured the front line, telling some of the tens of thousands of troops awaiting the ground invasion that “the order will come soon.”

“Right now you see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from the inside,” said Gallant.

Israeli jets struck more than 100 Hamas targets overnight, killing at least one Hamas operative, the army said Friday.

The horror of what Israel suffered on October 7 and following days was still emerging, as traumatised residents recounted their stories.

Shachar Butler, a security chief at the Nir Oz kibbutz, where Hamas militants killed or kidnapped a quarter of the 400 residents, recalls more than a dozen gunmen spraying bullets indiscriminately and lobbing grenades at homes.

“It’s unimaginable,” the 40-year-old told AFP as part of a trip organised by the Israeli military.

“Anytime someone tried to touch my window, I shot him,” he said. “The people who came out got kidnapped, killed, executed, slaughtered.”

Butler estimated as many as 200 militants attacked the kibbutz, entering from three sides before going house to house. Homes there were still charred with burned personal belongings strewn everywhere.

Israel says around 1,500 Hamas fighters were killed in clashes before its army regained control of the areas under attack.

Holding the world together

During a rare address from the Oval Office, Biden urged the United States to take the lead in supporting Israel and Ukraine, saying he would make an “urgent” request to Congress for aid later Friday.

“American leadership is what holds the world together,” Biden said in just his second primetime speech from behind the historic Resolute Desk.

Fresh from a whirlwind trip to Israel this week, Biden is hoping to staunch the possibility of a wider Middle East war.

The United States has already moved two aircraft carriers into the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran or Lebanon’s Hezbollah, both allies of Hamas, from getting involved.

But fears of a wider conflagration are growing, with Israel announcing plans to evacuate the northern city of Kiryat Shmona after days of clashes with Hezbollah fighters along the border with Lebanon.

The conflict has inflamed passions across the region, and authorities are bracing for mass protests in several countries, with Hamas urging demonstrators to target Israeli and US embassies.

Meanwhile, Gaza students in Egypt told AFP of their nightmare watching events unfold from far away.

Haya Shehab, 21, learned from an Instagram post that her extended family’s home had been bombed, killing 45 people — dozens of them cousins.

“Just like that, 45 of us gone,” said Shehab, who studies at a private university in Cairo.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Representational image of security personnel standing guard in front of the High Commission of Canada in New Delhi. Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats from India
| Photo Credit: AFP

Canada withdraws 41 diplomats from India as row over separatist killing grows

Canada said Thursday it had withdrawn 41 diplomats from India – fallout from a bitter row over the killing of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.

New Delhi planned to revoke diplomatic immunity for all but 21 of Canada’s diplomats and their families by Friday, forcing Ottawa to pull out the others, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said.

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Speaking from the Oval Office, U.S. President Joe Biden made the case for U.S. assistance to Ukraine and Israel, and said ‘won’t let “terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win”.

Akhilesh Yadav questions INDIA bloc’s viability as Congress decides to go it alone in Assembly polls

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Israel’s envoy says bombardment of Gaza to continue, ground operation needed to rescue hostages

Israel will not stop the bombardment of Gaza, and still plans a ground offensive to “eradicate Hamas’s capacity” and free about 200 Israeli hostages taken by the group during terror attacks on October 7, said Israel’s Ambassador to India Naor Gilon.

Thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his statements, Mr. Gilon said on October 19 that he hopes India, which has not so far designated Hamas as a terror group, would do so. Despite calls from neighbouring Arab countries for an immediate ceasefire, the envoy said that continuing with the operation was necessary for Israel’s “future”.

Court rejects Delhi Police plea against order to release journalists’ electronic devices

A Delhi court on Wednesday dismissed the plea filed by the Delhi Police against the orders of a magisterial court which had directed them to release the electronic devices seized from the editors and journalists of news portal, The Wire.

Additional Sessions Judge Pawan Singh Rajawat of the Tis Hazari Courts noted that the investigating agency, by continuous seizure of electronic devices of the respondents, is not only causing undue hardship to them, but impinges upon their fundamental right of freedom of profession and speech.

Steps in place to check price rise during festival season: Centre

Union Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said here on Thursday that the Centre has taken adequate measures, including extension of restrictions on exports of sugar, wheat and rice, to ensure that the prices of these essential items do not increase further and remain stable during the festival season.

Southwest monsoon withdraws from India

The southwest monsoon has ended and the northeast monsoon is likely to set in “in the next 72 hours”, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on October 19.

The onset of northeast monsoon, also known as the ‘retreating monsoon’, would likely be “weak”, the agency added.

More than 118 cases of corruption await prosecution sanction

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In M.P., BJP’s strategy this time is going to polls with Modi’s face alone

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday wrote a letter to the people of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh in an attempt to make a direct connect with voters by saying that their vote will work as “direct support” to him at the Centre.

The letter was made public by BJP State unit president and parliamentarian V.D. Sharma at a press conference in Bhopal by saying “chitthi aayi hai [a letter has arrived]”.

Nitish Kumar talks of ‘friendship’ with BJP leaders, slams last UPA government

Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar — who is running a coalition mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) government in Bihar with allies Rashtriya Janata Dal, Congress and Left parties — made some surprising remarks on Thursday (October 19), saying that as long as he was alive, his “friendship” with BJP leaders would remain.

Sikkim dam collapse will not slow India’s hydropower plans: R.K. Singh

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Ind vs Ban |Kohli gets into the act again as India makes light of yet another chase

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Australia and Pakistan face off in big-ticket clash at Chinnaswamy

A week is a long time in politics — former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson is supposed to have said, referring to the fast-changing pace of the political landscape. The Pakistan cricket team will hope that the adage comes true in sport when it takes on Australia in a crucial World Cup encounter at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday.

Egyptian aid trucks moved closer on Tuesday to the only crossing into Gaza not controlled by Israel, but without an agreement in place to deliver relief and with the Palestinian side closed, it was unclear when they might pass through.

After nine hours of negotiations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said early on Tuesday he had agreed with Israel to develop a plan to get aid into Gaza, but the time frame for any deliveries remained unclear.

At least 49 people were killed in an overnight Israeli bombardment of Rafah, where the crossing is situated, and the nearby town of Khan Younis, Gaza’s interior ministry said.

Later, aid workers gathered on the Egyptian side watched dark smoke from another apparent strike rising on the Gaza side, beyond a concrete border wall, according to footage shared with Reuters.

Egypt says the Rafah crossing, a vital artery before the fighting and now a key route for desperately needed supplies into the Israeli-besieged Palestinian enclave, has not been officially closed but has become inoperable due to the Israeli air strikes on the Gaza side.

Some people with dual citizenship who had gathered in recent days awaiting the opening of the Rafah crossing had begun approaching the border, but many said they were staying away due to the airstrikes.

Israel began its intense bombardment and siege of Gaza following a devastating assault by Islamist Hamas militants on Oct. 7.

Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been left without power, pushing health and water services to the brink of collapse, with fuel for hospital generators running low. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced in the Hamas-ruled strip.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it needed urgent access to Gaza to deliver aid and medical supplies.

Early on Tuesday some 160 trucks left al-Arish in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, where loads of aid have been awaiting an agreement on aid delivery, a witness told Reuters.

The trucks heading for the border contained Egyptian aid, and the international aid remained in warehouses in al-Arish, said Ahmed Salem of the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights.

Salem and another security source said Egypt had repaired roads within the crossing damaged by earlier Israeli strikes.

Negotiations

Antony Blinken lobbied hard for a plan after leaders of the half-dozen Arab states that he toured in recent days all conveyed that getting aid into Gaza should be a top priority, a senior US official said.

Both the US and Israel were concerned that Hamas would seize or destroy the aid, Blinken said. This concern, along with fears that aid would be used as cover for weapons, hindered a planned delivery on Monday, two Egyptian security sources said.

An understanding was reached that the aid would be delivered to specific secure locations in Gaza under monitoring, the security sources said, in exchange for limited evacuations of foreign passport holders.

A senior US official said such a plan had yet to be agreed.

The official said Biden’s newly appointed envoy for humanitarian affairs in the Middle East, David Satterfield, would meet Israeli officials on Tuesday and start hammering out the details of the plan.

Egypt and other Arab states oppose any plan by which large numbers of Palestinians would leave Gaza.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)