Health
Counting the Dead in Gaza: Lancet Article Reveals Dire Human Toll
The Lancet journal article discusses the devastating human toll in Gaza, reporting over 37,000 deaths since 2023. Indirect health impacts are expected to persist due to conflict-related factors.
On July 20, 2024, the Lancet journal of the United Kingdom – one of the world’s most respected medical journals – published a very sobering article on the human carnage that is currently taking place in Gaza. The article was entitled Counting the Dead in Gaza: difficult but essential, and was authored by three medical researchers – Dr Rasha Khatib of the Advocate Aurora Research Institute, Dr Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Dr Salim Yusuf of McMaster University.
The Gaza scenario outlined in the article is so dire and horrific, that the article needs to be disseminated far beyond the very limited medical fraternity that would typically come into contact with an article published in the Lancet.
The core of the article is as follows:-
“By June 19, 2024, 37,396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October 2023, according to the Gaza health ministry, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs . . . However, the number of reported deaths is likely an underestimate. The non-governmental organisation Airwars undertakes detailed assessments of incidents in the Gaza Strip and often finds that not all names of identifiable victims are included in the Ministry’s list. Furthermore, the UN estimates that, by February 29, 2024, 35 per cent of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed, so the number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10,000.
“Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.
“In the recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9 per cent of the total population in the Gaza Strip”.
Now, part of the significance of this Lancet article is that its eye-opening content provides a solid scientific foundation for virtually all of the positions that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has taken on the crisis in Gaza ever since the very comprehensive Statement On The Ongoing Situation In Gaza that emanated from the meeting of the CARICOM Heads of Government Conference in Guyana in February 2024.
