In the wake of Hamas’ October 7th attacks, Israeli Leaders vowed to wipe Hamas “off the face of the planet.” In the last month, their efforts to do so have resulted in increasingly catastrophic results for civilians in Gaza. According to numbers from a United Nations report released on December 1st, casualties in Gaza have exceeded 15,000 since October 7th, including 6,150 children and over 4,000 women. The United Nations Secretary recently said that Gaza is becoming a “graveyard for children.”

Below this top-line figure lies even more concerning information about civil rights and quality of life all across the Gaza strip. According to the UN, more than 3,000 Palestinians have been arrested since October 7th, frequently without any cited cause or reason. Since October 11th, the entire Gaza Strip has been on a total electricity blackout, and sections of northern Gaza are lacking any supply of clean water. Approximately 80% of Gazan Citizens are estimated to be displaced from their homes. Initial reports from a group using open source satellite information to track damage estimates that between 33% and 41.7% of all existing buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed as of December 11th, 2023.

This rate of casualty is unprecedented in modern history. Although it is important to note that Gazan officials do not separate the deaths of civilians from the deaths of Hamas Fighters, the scale of death among Women and Children is already monumental when compared historically. Only counting the deaths of Women and Children, reported casualties in Gaza for two months have already amounted to nearly a quarter of all estimated civilian deaths in Afghanistan in twenty years of fighting. If this rate of killing keeps up, Israel forces will be responsible for Afghanistan-equivalent casualties of women and children in just eight months. With some simple math, and if casualty numbers keep up at this speed, the rate of civilian death in the territory would be 30 times as rapid as the War in Afghanistan, which is likely the most widely criticized humanitarian crisis of the 21st century thus far.

So, what is causing these monumental casualty numbers? Many experts point to weaponry. Israel has reportedly been using 2,000 pound “bunker buster bombs” relatively regularly in strikes across Gaza. These munitions, 100 of which have been recently furnished by the United States, can burrow deep into the ground and dozens of feet through reinforced concrete before exploding. They leave large creators, and can destroy infrastructure above ground. This is especially concerning for regions like Gaza, where construction standards are spotty and even large apartment buildings are built with poor materials and construction strategy.

A senior U.S military official reported that 90% of all munitions that Israel dropped on Gaza in the first two weeks were between 1,000-2,000 pounds. These figures are incredibly alarming, considering the fact that U.S military officials often believed that even 500 pound bombs were far too large when they were targeting the Islamic State in less population dense areas than Gaza, such as Mosul and Raqqa.The Israeli Government claims that they make efforts to prevent and minimize civilian casualties, and the reason why casualty rates are so high is partially because of the Hamas military strategy to burrow tunnels under Gaza in order to transport troops and supplies, making them significantly harder to target. Still, casualty rates remain astonishingly high.

Although it is impossible to assign blame in this conflict, it is critical that Israeli forces and the Israeli government maintain the rules of war as they carry out their attack on Hamas. They are, by all accounts, the superior military power by far. The attacks on the Israeli people that took place on October 7th were horrifying and inexcusable. It is critical however, that the IDF and Israeli government do not sink to the level of the terrorists who attacked them. A callous disregard for life was the reason this war began, and it would be heartbreaking and unnecessary to see it become a lasting characteristic of the conflict.