TEHRAN – The scale of death in Gaza has reached a level that is almost impossible to comprehend, yet the world continues to treat it as an abstraction. In comments reported by Anadolu, Stuart Casey Maslen, head of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, warned that Gaza’s population has declined by more than 10 percent since Israel launched war on the enclave on October 7, 2023. Based on pre-war population figures, the decline points to a possible death toll of around 200,000 people. If accurate, this would represent one of the most devastating episodes of civilian death in modern history.

These estimates exist alongside the latest figures announced by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which say nearly 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war on Gaza. Even this number is widely understood to be incomplete. It reflects only those bodies that have been recovered, identified, and recorded under conditions of near-total destruction. Entire neighborhoods have been flattened, hospitals destroyed, and record-keeping systems wiped out. Thousands remain buried under rubble or have died from starvation, disease, and lack of medical care caused by Israel’s siege. The gap between the official death toll and Maslen’s population-based estimate exposes the true scale of the catastrophe.

Maslen was clear in his interview with Anadolu that the suffering in Gaza has not ended, even with a reduction in large-scale hostilities. People continue to die from untreated injuries, lack of evacuation, and the collapse of basic living conditions. Food, clean water, shelter, medical care, and protection from the elements remain desperately inadequate. This is not a temporary humanitarian crisis but the result of a sustained assault on the foundations of civilian life.

The claim that this is merely a tragic but unintended consequence of war does not stand up to scrutiny. The destruction of Gaza has been systematic. Homes, schools, universities, hospitals, water systems, and bakeries have all been targeted. The denial of food, fuel, and medical supplies has been openly used as a weapon. Under international law, genocide does not require the killing of every member of a group; it requires intent to destroy a people in whole or in part. Maslen himself pointed out that international investigations have already identified acts in Gaza — mass killing, serious injury, and the deliberate deprivation of essentials — that meet the underlying criteria for genocide.

It is also crucial to understand that this did not begin on October 7, 2023. Gaza has been under siege for years, its population confined, impoverished, and repeatedly subjected to military assaults. What began on October 7 was not a war in a vacuum but the most extreme phase of a long-running campaign of collective punishment. 

The role of the United States in this catastrophe cannot be ignored. Without U.S. military aid, political backing, and diplomatic protection, Israel could not have carried out this war in the way it has. Washington has continued to supply weapons while blocking or weakening international efforts to hold Israel accountable. The result is total impunity. Even arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court have been met not with enforcement, but with political attacks and sanctions against the judges themselves. This is not neutrality; it is complicity.

The consequences for Gaza will last for decades. Maslen acknowledged that rebuilding has barely begun and that the level of destruction is extraordinary. Billions of dollars will be required just to restore basic infrastructure, and even then, no amount of money can undo the trauma inflicted on an entire generation. Children have been orphaned, families erased, and communities shattered beyond recognition.

The warning of 200,000 deaths should be a moment of global reckoning. Instead, it risks becoming just another statistic debated, diluted, or ignored. The people of Gaza are not numbers. They are human beings who have been subjected to a campaign of destruction that the world’s most powerful states have allowed — and enabled — to continue.

What is happening in Gaza is not a tragedy without authors. It is the result of deliberate political choices, military strategies, and international failures. Until there is accountability for Israel’s actions and for the governments that have armed and protected it, the death toll will keep rising, whether the bombs fall loudly or the suffering continues in silence.