Ralph Nader – Common Dreams June 20, 2026

The mainstream media has no problem guesstimating the deaths (500,000) from the Assad Dictatorship’s Civil War in Syria, nor the estimated deaths in the wars in Ukraine, Sudan, or Iran.

Somehow, media editors do not let their investigative reporters assess the extent of Israel’s mass murder of civilians in Gaza—an exposed, defenseless population of 2.3 million people in an enclave the geographic size of Pennsylvania. The Associated Press notes that U.S. military historian Robert Pape believes, “Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history” and that, “It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.”

Why? One reason is that the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health certifies deaths in Gaza based on reports from hospitals and morgues that were mostly blown up well over a year ago. (They report presently around 73,000 fatalities.) But Hamas has admitted that there are tens of thousands of bodies under the rubble, thousands more blown into bits or incinerated and unidentifiable. They also say their figures do not include the collateral deaths (e.g., spreading fires) from the Israeli military F-16 bombings and relentless shelling of the people of Gaza or the deaths caused by the Israeli government-imposed blocking of food, medicine, healthcare, water, fuel, electricity and shelter. From other conflict zones around the world, the ratio of collateral deaths is anywhere from 3 to 13 times the deaths by violent weaponry.

The Israeli regime is fine with the Hamas undercount because they and the U.S. State Department know the real death toll (along with the injury count) is much, much higher. Hamas knows that on October 7, 2023, the multi-layered Israeli border security apparatus was shaky. They then launched what turned out to be a suicide-homicide assault over the border, resulting in some 1400 deaths as compared with the nearly 1200 people—about 400 of them soldiers and police—shot by the Hamas raiders. To this day, with most Israelis skeptical, Netanyahu has blocked an independent official investigation of the mysterious collapse of the multi-tiered Israeli border security complex.

Netanyahu attributes it to negligence. There were, however, too many separate warnings, including 24-hour Israeli spotters from the Israeli side, plus Israel having the Hamas plans a year earlier, to accept that improbable pretext.

Hamas, on the other hand, doesn’t mind the world media repeating again and again their minimal, identifiable death count. They certainly do not want the realistic estimate death count to further outrage their subjects because Hamas did not protect the civilian population, and did not have any air-raid shelters. Hamas certainly knew what was coming from the ultra-modern, savage Israeli military backed by co-belligerent Joe Biden’s U.S. ultra-modern and lethal military industrial complex.

There is another media reluctance operating. The reports by eyewitnesses, and scholarly and military weaponry specialists, who arrive at minimum and maximum ranges of deaths (most of whom are children and women) bring repulsive denunciations and charges of anti-Semitism.

Moreover, apologists for endless Israeli slaughter, like Bret Stephens, the mouthpiece of Netanyahu on the New York Times opinion page, have used the low Hamas figures to counter charges of Israeli genocide. If it was genocide, they inaccurately claim, the death toll would be much higher. In 2025, two major Israeli human‑rights organizations – B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel – each issued reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza (see reporting from Amnesty International).

Well, the death toll is much higher, over 600,000 lives destroyed or over 25% of Gaza’s original population. This leaves an improbable nearly 75% still alive, though most are sick, injured, or dying. Reporting reality would intensify the political, diplomatic, and civic determination to stop the killing, let in adequate humanitarian aid, and move toward resolving this conflict.

Analysts reported by The Lancet, international relief organizations, universities, and UN agencies all estimate hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians from violent bombs, artillery, snipers, and the resultant, related secondary effects noted above.

For example, Professor Emeritus Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford in the UK, back in April 2025 estimated the tonnage of explosives dropped on Gaza was the equivalent of six Hiroshima bombs, but more lethal because these daily projectiles are more targeted. Tarek Loubani, a Canadian physician who has served tours of duty at crumbling Gaza hospitals, puts the estimate at “hundreds of thousands of dead.”

In a detailed, footnoted series of reports (“The Truth About Gaza’s Dead”), Feroze Sidhwa, an American trauma surgeon who worked in Gaza’s killing fields, has published much probative evidence by dozens of other health workers who experienced the ghastly horrors. These included the deliberate targeting by Israeli terrorist snipers of little children receiving bullets in their brains and hearts. (See Foreign doctors say Israel systematically targeting Gaza’s children: Report – Al Jazeera, September 14, 2025).

The recent report by Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, referred to a consensus of 680,000 deaths.

The respected chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Devi Sridhar, long ago was offering estimates far higher than those of Hamas.

The Hill reported that in November 2023, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf testified to a House committee that the actual number of Palestinians killed in Gaza was likely higher than the figures then being reported by Gaza health authorities at that time. She was immediately silenced and never again spoke about Israel’s genocidal casualties. The State Department has been blocking a Freedom of Information demand for two years.

The huge Israeli bloc in Congress, of course, has allowed no hearings on the toll made possible by deadly U.S. weapons (including shipping over white phosphorus artillery shells)— costing billions of dollars paid for by U.S. taxpayers. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported that Israel used white phosphorus munitions in military operations in Gaza and along the Israel–Lebanon border shortly after the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Reporters could have gotten informed assessments and estimates about the Israeli-inflicted carnage in Gaza from Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, the World Central Kitchen, and other aid groups. Scores of infants and children in Gaza are dying every day from disease, malnutrition, and untreated injuries. There are no healthcare facilities for them. The shameful U.S. newspapers, magazines, television, and radio disrespect the Palestinians in both life and death, something they would never dare to do if the shoe were on the other foot!

Why aren’t brave reporters like Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman, and Sy Hersh looking deeply into the ghastly indifference to the undercount in Gaza? Truth and the mournful survivors need you!

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