There has long been significant undercounting of Palestinians deaths as the Genocide continues.

The widely ‘accepted’ figure for Palestinian deaths in Gaza is 73,000. It is much more.

In July 2024, one of Britain’s most respected medical journals, The Lancet, published correspondence estimating that the eventual death toll could reach 186,000 or more. Al Jazeera reported that estimate.

John Menadue

This is an update on an article by John Menadue, 5 September 2025.

The 2024 Lancet correspondence used a four-to-one indirect-to-direct mortality ratio, drawn from data in previous conflicts. If used today, that calculation would imply a total mortality of roughly 290,000. To be clear, this horrific number is an evidence-based estimate, not a tally. That does not diminish what a shocking number it is.

Indirect deaths are the result of injuries, malnutrition, impaired medical facilities and disease. In his observation about Indigenous Australia, Geoffrey Blainey commented that “the main conqueror of Aborigines was disease and its ally, demoralisation”. That is what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank today.

And the Trump ‘ceasefire’ is a nonsense. The killing goes on.

One death is a tragedy, but we have become inured to the scale of the Palestinian tragedy. The Western world, including Australia, turns its back. We have failed to act. Penny Wong in very serious demeanour tells us it is “very concerning”. Anthony Albanese rabbits on about a two-state solution but avoids facing up to the here and now – genocide. Together with Wong, the prime minister made sure that any mention of genocide was deliberately excluded from the ALP platform.

The government has rebuked the Israeli ambassador over the tragic death of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) but is silent on Israeli genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, a state exclusively for Jews.

Last week, Netanyahu’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited a facility where terrorists found guilty of murder will be hanged. He boasted that the new facility will include a “dedicated wing” where terrorists sentenced to death will be transferred and await hanging. Viewing booths will allow surviving victims and their families to watch the proceedings. “We are making history,” Ben-Gvir declared.

Numerous commentators, not just The Lancet, have drawn attention to the underestimate of deaths in Gaza. Ralph Nader estimated that by June 2024 the toll could likely be at least 200,000. “The undercount is staggering,” he said.

Adam Rzepka, a researcher at Montclair State University and a co-founder of Montclair State’s Chapter of the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, commented in an article in CounterPunch in 2025: “The minimum scientifically plausible number of traumatic deaths only – immediate deaths from bullets, bombs, and demolished buildings – in the Gaza genocide is currently more than 115,000.”

“Anyone who claims to rely on the best scientific consensus today must report the current death toll in the Gaza genocide as ‘more than 115,000’ violent deaths or ‘more than 460,000 overall’,” Rzepka said.

We will only be able to count the total death toll when the genocide and Israel’s censorship ends. But the death toll will be far greater than the 73,000 today.

Our so-called leaders have used every excuse possible to deny the facts of the genocide.

They won’t call it a genocide because that will require action.

In April last year, Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the Rwandan genocide “a period of unspeakable brutality and inhumanity”. That was easy for a genocide 30 years ago, but she is tongue-tied about the new brutality and inhumanity.

The death toll is a horror, but there is much more in this catastrophe. There are the injuries of 174,000, and probably another 10,000 Palestinians still buried under the rubble.

And the traumatised children. According to estimates by UNICEF, 58,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both parents since October 2023. There are at least 17,000 children who are unaccompanied or separated from their immediate families. Aid groups report that nearly all children in Gaza require urgent support due to serious trauma. The secretary-general of the UN said that “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children. Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day.”

Al Jazeera has reported that Palestinian babies have died in humidity cribs (neonatal incubators) due to power failures and hospital evacuations, while others have died from severe cold inside displacement camps.

And the Zionist lobby remains silent!

And then there is the ethnic cleansing by Israel of millions of Palestinians since the Nakba in 1948. Those displaced include 6 million registered as refugees with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA). About 2.3 million are in Jordan, 440,000 in Syria, 220,000 in Lebanon and 136,000 in Egypt.

There are also many Palestinians living beyond the Middle East – Chile 500,000, USA 255,000 and the rest of the world 2 to 3 million, including Australia.

And the Zionist lobby remains silent!

There is antisemitism in Australia. Most of it is latent. But the Israeli genocide has triggered the old prejudices. By abusing that term ‘antisemitism’, Zionists are storing up trouble for the future when antisemitism could become a serious problem again. In this important respect, Zionists are their own worst enemy.

Overwhelmingly, nations, as expressed in the United Nations General Assembly and elsewhere, have called for an end to the genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has made it clear that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Jeffrey Sachs has pointed out that the overwhelming voice of humanity is on the side of the people of Palestine. “Last December in the UN, 172 countries, with more than 90 per cent of the world population, voted to support Palestine’s right to self-determination.”

In a Gallup poll in the US earlier this year, 41 per cent of Americans sympathised more with Palestinians while 36 per cent sympathised more with Israel. An NBC News poll showed that 39 per cent of US registered voters view Israel negatively compared with 32 per cent positively. Both Pew and Quinnipiac University polls indicate a significant shift in favour of Palestinians amongst young people.

In Australia, a Guardian/Essential poll earlier this year revealed that only 19 per cent of Australians maintain a favourable view of Israel, lower than views of China. A Pew Research Centre survey showed that 56 per cent of Australians view Israel unfavourably.

Western media has been the great enabler of this genocide. In their racism, Western media has consistently discounted the knowledge and bravery of Palestinian journalists, who have been telling the truth despite over 250 being assassinated for exposing the unending Israeli lies that Hamas is hiding behind every hospital, school or aid truck. IDF snipers even shoot young children.

No honest media organisation should have given “balance” for the Nazis in the Holocaust. Neither should the legacy media today give “balance” for an Israeli genocide.

The secretary-general of the UN has described the “nightmare in Gaza as more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity.”

And still the Zionist lobby remains silent!

One thing stands out in all this tragedy. It is the remarkable bravery of the Palestinian people. When will they secure peace and justice?

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/08/palestinian-deaths-continue-and-the-numbers-are-horrifying/

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