The Biden administration is facing increased calls to halt its weapons sales to Israel, after a letter recently published in a top British medical journal warned that the human toll from the ongoing offensive in Gaza is far worse than anticipated.
The Lancet, a medical journal that says it takes a neutral position regarding territorial claims, published a letter on July 5 by three public health scholars titled, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.”
The Hamas-affiliated Gaza Health Ministry, which has counted the dead at roughly 38,000, is widely regarded by both apolitical experts and political leaders as a credible source, even as it faces hurdles due to the destruction of infrastructure.
Citing that number, the letter’s authors say that, “applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death, … it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”
If that estimate holds, it would amount to almost 8% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
These “indirect” deaths are those caused in the longer term by destroyed infrastructure, famine, lack of sanitation and dysfunctional hospitals problems made dire by the Israeli offensive.
“Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable and non-communicable diseases,” the letter states.
“The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water and shelter; the population’s inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organizations still active in the Gaza Strip.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed on Tuesday that the Biden administration has seen the Lancet letter, saying, “Whatever the number of civilians that have actually died as a result of this conflict, we know that it’s far too many.”
“The death toll could very well be more,” he told reporters. “We know there are potentially people who are under rubble who have not been counted.”
In the wake of the Lancet letter, several groups renewed their demands that the Biden administration immediately halt their military and financial support for Israel, which continues to face accusations at the international level of committing genocide against Palestinians.
“If President Biden wants to demonstrate, meaningfully, that he believes in our shared humanity, he needs to change his policy. That means putting an end to this genocide, an end to the U.S.’s arming of this genocide, and an end to the occupation of the Palestinian people,” said Abbas Alawieh , campaign manager for the Uncommitted National Movement, which mobilizes Democratic voters who don’t want to vote for Biden over his support for Israel. Alawieh spoke Thursday at a Netroots panel in Baltimore on voter apathy.
The group secured about 30 uncommitted delegates for the Democratic National Convention next month, including Alawieh himself. Its members have joined many other Muslim delegates and allies in urging Democrats to include support for a cease-fire in Gaza and a halt in U.S. weapon transfers to Israel as part of the party’s official 2024 platform.
“The U.S. policy of supplying Israel with bombs while simultaneously dropping symbolic food aid to Palestinians is cynical, abhorrent and inhumane,” the coalition of delegates and allies said in their platform recommendations, which were sent Thursday. “The U.S. must take immediate steps to save lives, which means ceasing the supply of weapons and applying tangible pressure on Israel to stop obstructing humanitarian aid.”
Multiple outlets reported this week that the Biden administration has released about half of the heavy bomb shipment it has withheld from Israel since May, and will resume sending 500-pound bombs to Israel, while continuing to withhold 2,000-pound bombs.
“As the world witnesses the mass slaughter and wholesale destruction the far-right Israeli government is carrying out in Gaza, it is unconscionable that the Biden administration would send more American taxpayer-funded bombs to kill and maim more women, children and men in Gaza,” Nihad Awad, national executive director of Muslim civil rights group CAIR, said in a statement on Wednesday. “This madness must stop.”
