Gazans Count the Cost of War as Death Toll Nears 30,000

 Palestinians pray by the bodies of relatives who were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, at Rafah's Najjar hospital on February 27, 2024, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continue. (AFP)
Palestinians pray by the bodies of relatives who were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, at Rafah's Najjar hospital on February 27, 2024, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continue. (AFP)
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Gazans Count the Cost of War as Death Toll Nears 30,000

 Palestinians pray by the bodies of relatives who were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, at Rafah's Najjar hospital on February 27, 2024, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continue. (AFP)
Palestinians pray by the bodies of relatives who were killed in overnight Israeli air strikes on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, at Rafah's Najjar hospital on February 27, 2024, as battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas continue. (AFP)

Palestinian teacher Iman Mussallam says she is struggling to come to terms with the Gaza war's death toll nearing 30,000 after almost five months of conflict between Israel and Hamas.

But with many victims still trapped under the rubble of flattened buildings, the displaced Gaza woman says she is certain "the real number is greater than that".

"We don't know how many martyrs there will be when the war ends," added the 30-year-old, who has taken refuge at a crowded United Nations shelter in Gaza's far-southern city of Rafah.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war, sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, has brought a litany of horrors to the Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people.

The death toll is exponentially higher than that of the four previous Gaza wars combined.

Cemeteries are full, stocks of body bags have run short, and one bereaved farmer reported having to bury his three brothers and their five children in a citrus grove.

Some 1.5 million people gathered in Rafah are desperately hoping for a ceasefire, fearing yet more bloodshed if Israel launches its threatened ground assault on the city.

On Tuesday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 29,878 people had been killed so far, and another 70,215 had been injured.

The toll highlights "the extent of the suffering of the Palestinian people" during the war, the effects of which "will remain for generations to come", said Ahmed Orabi, a professor at the Islamic University of Gaza.

The war erupted with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israeli border communities that claimed the lives of 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel has also been gripped by the desperate plight of about 250 hostages who were taken back to Gaza during the attack, as well as the fate of the estimated 130 still being held.

That attack unleashed an Israeli military offensive of unrelenting scale in a bid to hunt down the Hamas fighters who took part in the assault and the group's leaders.

A 'death zone'

Since the start of the war, the health ministry in Gaza has been tasked with the grueling job of accounting for each of the dead and injured in the 40-kilometre (25-mile) sliver of land on the Mediterranean Sea.

The Hamas government is quick to point out that women and children account for some 70 percent of the death toll.

It has not given the number of militants killed in the fighting. The Israeli army says some 10,000 Hamas fighters have been killed so far.

The Gaza health ministry also breaks down the figures into medical workers, members of the civil defense forces and journalists covering the conflict.

As of February 24, the New-York based Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 88 media workers had been killed since the war began.

Israel questions the accuracy of the Hamas government figures, and denies deliberately targeting civilians, medical workers or journalists.

Gaza -- described by the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as a "death zone" -- has become a place of perpetual mourning.

Not a day has gone by without a funeral in Gaza, though harsh wartime conditions have forced residents to improvise even as they grieve.

Overworked staff at under-equipped hospitals have had to use alternative forms of refrigeration before burials, including an ice-cream truck.

Elsewhere, a mass grave was dug at a dirt football field.

Bodies have been transported by donkey carts because of a lack of fuel.

Even the dead are not totally at peace, with Israel admitting it has exhumed some bodies from cemeteries as part of its efforts to identify hostages who may have been killed in the war.

"Bodies determined not (to) be those of hostages are returned with dignity and respect," the military has said.

Some 31 hostages are believed to have been killed, according to Israeli figures.

Mussallam called what has happened in Gaza "the largest massacre in modern history", but also blamed Hamas for carrying out the attack then retreating to its tunnels under Gaza.

With civilians largely paying the price, she asked, "how is it our fault?"



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."