Nearly 70% of deaths in Gaza are women and children: UN

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Friday in its report confirmed that nearly 70 per cent of verified deaths were of women and children.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in its report said having verified 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of Israel’s war in Gaza, finding that a high proportion were women and children – the youngest just one day old.

The report warned that “widespread or systematic” attacks on civilians could amount to “crimes against humanity”.

“And if committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, they may also constitute genocide,” it said.

The UN’s breakdown of the victims’ ages and genders backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.

Overall, 44 percent of the victims were children, with the biggest single category aged five to nine, followed by those aged 10-14, and then those aged up to and including four.  The youngest victim was a one-day-old boy and the oldest, a 97-year-old woman.

It showed that in 88 percent of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, pointing to the Israeli military’s use of weapons impacting wide areas in densely populated zones.

Some of the deaths may also have been the result of errant projectiles from Palestinian armed groups dropping short, the report added.