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\nThe figures have been stalled for months. <\/strong>That serves Israel\u2019s interests by lulling western publics into a false sense of complacency<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The reported death toll in Gaza is way too low by every imaginable metric. We need to be stressing this \u2013 all the more so when Israel’s apologists are vigorously engaged in a disinformation campaign to suggest that the figures are inflated.<\/p>\n On 6 May, 7 months into Israel’s slaughter, there were reported<\/a> to be 34,735 dead. That was an average of 4,960 Palestinians killed each month.<\/p>\n Today, nearly three months on, the reported death toll stands at<\/a> 39,400 \u2013 or an increase of 4,665.<\/p>\n It should not need a statistician to point out that, were the rise linear, the expected number of deaths would stand by this point at around 49,600.<\/p>\n So, even by the simplest calculation, there is a large shortfall in deaths \u2013 a shortfall that needs explaining.<\/p>\n Such an explanation is easy to provide: Israel destroyed Gaza’s institutions and its medical infrastructure, including its hospitals, many months ago, making it impossible for officials there to keep track of how many Palestinians are being killed by Israel.<\/p>\n The death toll figures started to stall in the spring, around the time Israel completed its destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and kidnapped<\/a> much of the enclave’s medical personnel.<\/p>\n More than a month ago, Save the Children pointed out<\/a> that some 21,000 children in Gaza were missing, in addition to the 16,000 known to have been killed by Israel. Many are likely to have suffered lonely, terrifying deaths under rubble \u2013 gradually suffocated to death, or dying slowly from dehydration.<\/p>\n But again, even those shocking figures are likely to be a severe undercount.<\/p>\n The linear figure entirely misses the bigger picture. How?<\/p>\n 1. Because in addition to the continuing Israeli bombardments, Palestinians have had to endure three more months of an intensifying famine. With each day of a famine, more people die than died the day before. The deaths in a famine are not linear, they are exponential. If 5 people died yesterday of starvation, 20 people will die today, and 150 tomorrow. That is how prolonged famines work. The longer you are starved, the higher the probability you will die of starvation.<\/p>\n 2. Because Palestinians have had three more months deprived of medical care after Israel destroyed their hospitals and medical institutions. If you have a chronic illness \u2013 diabetes, asthma, kidney problems, high blood pressure, and so on \u2013 the longer you are forced to go without medical attention, the greater the chance you will die from an untreated condition. Again, the death rate in such circumstances is exponential, not linear.<\/p>\n 3. Because without medical care, all sorts of other things that happen in everyday life become more dangerous. Childbirth is the most obvious example, but even cuts and grazes can become a death sentence. So given the fact that Palestinians now have even less access to medical care than they had in the first six months of Israel\u2019s war on Gaza suggests that people are being killed by life-events in even greater numbers than was the case earlier in Israel\u2019s slaughter.<\/p>\n 4. Because, for exactly the same reasons, those injured by Israel\u2019s continuing bombardments are likely to have poorer outcomes than those similarly injured in earlier attacks. Fewer doctors means less chance of treatment, means greater chance of dying from your wounds.<\/p>\n 5. Because we know that \u2013 given the insanitary conditions, the lack of water and food, the weakened health status of the population, and the destruction of hospitals \u2013 epidemics now are breaking out. The WHO has already warned<\/a> of a likely outbreak of polio, but there are sure to be other diseases emerging such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery that have yet to be isolated and identified. Even the common cold can become a killer when people’s health status is this compromised.<\/p>\n