OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The bloodiest ever Gaza war which broke out more than 10 months ago has taken an appalling human toll.
At least 40,005 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian territory in Israel’s retaliatory campaign for the October 7 attack that triggered the war, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. It does not provide a breakdown of civilian and fighter casualties.
The unprecedented Hamas raid on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 Israelis and foreigners, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
While Hamas has refused to say how many fighters it has lost, the Israeli military said it had killed and apprehended around 14,000 fighters as of July 16.
Among the Hamas fighters killed until July 16 were six brigade commanders, more than 20 battalion commanders, and around 150 company commanders, the military said.
Like many of the casualty figures from the war, this is impossible to confirm independently.
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According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, had between 15,000 and 20,000 fighters. Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies cites 15,000 but underlines that Arab media spoke of 40,000.
Israeli losses
Around one-third of those killed in Israel on October 7 and in the two subsequent days of violence were members of the security forces – 306 soldiers, 60 police officers and 10 members of the Shin Bet internal security service, Israel said.
Seventy-nine of those killed during the attack were foreigners, mostly Thai workers.
The Israeli army says 690 troops have died since the war began, 20 of those in friendly fire.
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