83% of killed in Gaza are civilians: Israel's classified database

Tel Aviv: A classified Israeli military intelligence database states that five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza were civilians, reported The Guardian.

Nineteen months into the war, Israel killed 53,000 Palestinians according to health authorities in Gaza.

The database lists 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”. This accounts for just 17 per cent of the total deaths, and thus 83 per cent of the rest are civilians.

The database shows that the apparent ratio of deaths of civilians to combatants is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killings in the Syrian and Sudanese wars.

Meanwhile, experts warned that Gaza was at risk of famine. The Gaza Strip's largest city is now gripped by famine, according to the world's leading authority on food crises, the Associated Press reported.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said Friday that famine was occurring in Gaza City, and is likely to spread to the southern cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Aid groups and food security experts have warned for months that Gaza was on the brink of famine, yet this is the first official confirmation.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory, said the report was “false and biased”. It rejected the claim that there was famine in Gaza and said that in recent weeks, significant steps had been taken to expand the amount of aid entering the strip.

The situation has vastly deteriorated in Gaza. The IPC report said that from early July until mid-August, it has seen the most severe deterioration since it began analysing food insecurity and malnutrition in Gaza. And despite the “unprecedented pace” over that time frame, the IPC expects the situation to get worse.

One third of Gaza's population is expected to experience catastrophic levels of hunger by the end of next month, the IPC said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied there is hunger in Gaza, calling reports of starvation “lies” promoted by Hamas.

Famine occurs when these conditions are met. The IPC was first set up in 2004 during the famine in Somalia. It includes more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups, governments and other bodies.

Famine can appear in pockets, sometimes small ones, and so a formal classification requires caution.