Israel has killed more than 45,000 Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the United Nations. An estimated 10,000 more Palestinian men, women, and children remain buried under rubble. A study by The Lancet estimated four indirect deaths per direct killing as a consequence of the burdens of armed violence, such as the destruction of health care infrastructure.

This brings the total death toll in Gaza to as high as 186,000. Israeli sources cite 1,700 Israeli and foreign national killed in the violence. While some may view this asymmetry as justified, others argue it represents how Palestinian people have been dehumanized.

Is the death toll too high?

Are Palestinian Babies Innocent?

Florida Congressman Brian Mast was filmed telling CODE PINK protesters that his idea of a “great solution” to the Israel-Palestine crisis would be to “kill all the terrorists and kill everyone who are supporters.” A protester asked, “You haven’t seen the pictures of all the babies being killed?” Mast responded: “These [Palestinian casualties of war] are not innocent Palestinian civilians.”

As of November 20, 2024, Israel killed at least 17,400 Gazan children since October 7, 2023. This includes 710 babies below the age of one and 701 elderly over 75 years old. The average daily death toll in the Gaza Strip includes 115 Palestinian men, women, and children killed by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces).  Of those, 46 are children and 31 are women.

Mast also declared that the “half a million people starving to death” should have elected a pro-Israel government. The leader of that regime, Netanyahu, gave a speech at the Israeli Knesset explaining its current war on Gaza as a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”

The people supporting the killing of Palestinian men, women, and children believe they are on the side of peace and justice.  Would they still support the killing of Palestinian families if they realized that Palestinian families were forced from their homes in 1948 and made and kept refugees from their homes ever since?

A Shared Ireland & Palestine History

Ireland is the most pro-Palestinian country in Europe. Mothers Against Genocide activist Kirsten Farrelly described Irish solidarity with Palestine as originating in a shared history of British occupation: “It’s the same with South Africa, it’s the same with South America. All these scars are being opened up in us, when we see what’s happening to the Palestinians.”

Just over a hundred years ago, both Ireland and Palestine were British colonies. The colonial governor of Ireland, Lord Balfour, also laid the groundwork for the creation of the state of Israel. The brutal Black and Tans forces that killed Irish civilians were eventually sent to repress the peoples of British Mandate Palestine territory.

The Irish Times opinion writer Mark O’Connell considered Ireland’s support of Palestinians due to their shared history of colonization as intuitive. However, “What made less intuitive sense to me […] was that such a cultural memory of colonisation – the knowledge that atrocities took place in your own country at the hands of a foreign occupying power – might be some kind of necessary condition for understanding that similar atrocities occurring today are also wrong.”

The Palestinian Death Toll & the Value of a Life

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal in January 2025 after more than 460 days of devastation for the Palestine population in Gaza. The deal ending the latest exacerbation of violence in the long running mistreatment of Palestinian families starts with a temporary ceasefire that will allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes in Gaza, as well as a release of captives and prisoners.

As of November 2023, Israel has approximately 7,000 Palestinians imprisoned–the majority have never been convicted of a crime and are held without charge or trial. Israel has agreed to free 30 Palestinian women, children, and elders for each living Israeli civilian hostage and 50 Palestinian prisoners for every female Israeli soldier. The ratio may seem generous to Israel’s supporters.  A more neutral perspective might be that the ratio indicates how little regard there has been for the lives of Palestinian men, women, and children that so, so many more of them have been taken prisoner or killed.

Despite the ceasefire agreement, violence continues in Israel-Palestine. IDF operations in the West Bank have killed dozens of Palestinians, destroyed homes, and forced hundreds of residents in Jenin to flee. Many Jews, including Holocaust survivors and rabbis, demand that Israel end its aggression against Palestinians. For many, the struggle for peace continues beyond the call for a ceasefire–it is embedded in the demand for equality between Israelis and Palestinian families.

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