US assesses Israel killed, injured over 80,000 Palestinians in Gaza by end of 2023

The United States has assessed that Israel killed or injured almost 80,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the end of 2023, amid the Occupation’s ongoing offensive and genocidal campaign in the Territory.

In its annual assessment report on Sunday of human rights across the world, the US State Department stated that, following the attacks into Israeli-held territory by Palestinian Resistance group, Hamas, Israel’s military offensive on Gaza “killed more than 21,000 Palestinians and injured more than 56,000 by the end of the year [2023], displaced the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, and resulted in a severe humanitarian crisis.”

While the report acknowledged that Israel’s forces killed or injured almost 80,000 Palestinians in Gaza, or 3 per cent of the besieged Strip’s population, those numbers are a far cry from the steady increase of casualties at the hands of Israel’s genocidal campaign.

With the number of killed now being at least 34,000 – it is a rare statement of honesty by the US regarding the crisis. With the Strip’s injured now amounting around 80,000 themselves, the total combined killed and injured in Gaza has climbed to at least an estimated 114,000, which is over 5 per cent of the Territory’s population.

READ: US foreign policy is prolonging Israel’s genocide in Gaza

Israel “must conduct military operations in accordance with international law and take every feasible precaution to protect civilians”, the report stated. “We continue to urgently raise concerns surrounding the deaths of and injuries to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including women, children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable persons.”

It added that Washington has repeatedly “pressed concerns about Palestinian civilians’ access to humanitarian assistance, displacement of the majority of the population of Gaza and the unprecedented number of journalists killed”.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that the White House continues to review reports that Israel has violated international laws of war in Gaza and the West Bank, and that part of the review will investigate whether American weapons were involved. Blinken insisted that the process will be fair, whether a country is “an adversary or competitor, a friend or an ally.”