by VIJAY PRASHAD
7 October 2025 will mark the second anniversary of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. At least 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during this time – 30 out of every 1,000 people.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
7 October 2025 will mark the second anniversary of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The World Health Organisation’s data page on Palestinian casualties, regularly updated using figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry and UN agencies, shows that around 66,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last two years – 30 out of every 1,000 people who were living in Gaza (these numbers, however may be too low, as the ministry has often admitted that it has no capacity to keep up with the flow of death and does not know how many people are buried beneath the tonnes of rubble).
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, calculates that 50,000 Palestinian children have been killed or injured. As Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa and a twenty-year veteran at UNICEF, stated:
These children – lives that should never be reduced to numbers – are now part of a long, harrowing list of unimaginable horrors: the grave violations against children, the blockade of aid, the starvation, the constant forced displacement, and the destruction of hospitals, water systems, schools, and homes. In essence, the destruction of life itself in the Gaza Strip.
Beigbeder’s statement was based on an assessment of the facts over the last two years. Indeed, the year before, Commissioner General of the UN’s Palestine agency (UNRWA) Philippe Lazzarini said that every day, ten children lost one or both legs due to Israel’s bombardment. A few months later, Lisa Doughten of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told the UN Security Council that ‘Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history’. These stories received little to no attention in mainstream media outlets.
The Tricontinental for more