Ralph Nader’s open letter, republished in Pearls and Irritations (20th August), is both a cautionary tale and an act of principled advocacy. Above all, it is a plea for truth in reporting. Nader calls on his fellow journalists—here and everywhere—to do the hard yards: to actively research and report the true number of Gazans killed since the beginning of the genocide on 7 October 2023.

To this day, mainstream media across the Western world continue to rely on data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. These figures—gathered under the most horrendous conditions—are entirely credible. On 22 August, the Ministry reported 62,004 violent deaths, largely due to the actions of the IDF. But this number is only part of a much bigger story of death and destruction.

Nader rightly insists that the data must include not only those killed through direct violence, but also fatalities resulting from imposed deprivation. Drawing on epidemiological studies that consider deaths from injury, trauma, lack of medicines, water, food, shelter, and other basic necessities, Nader states the true death toll to be closer to 500,000.

Conveying this figure, Nader argues, “would affect the intensity of the political, diplomatic, and civic pressures for a ceasefire. It would also prompt more strenuous calls for immediate humanitarian aid, an immediate ceasefire, and peace negotiations.” Crucially, it would also assist in holding the Israeli government and military leadership to account. Nader’s plea should not go unheeded. To do so is to render hundreds of thousands of deceased Palestinians invisible.

Earlier this year, we published articles in   Arena Online and in    Independent Australia detailing the full scale of the Gazan carnage. We did so to help present the full story of the Gazan genocide and, ultimately, to push the case for peace with justice. Our article in Independent Australia concluded: “…the full scale of death in Gaza since 7 October 2023 cannot be attributed simply to violent deaths caused by the actions of the IDF. Deaths from imposed deprivation must be factored into the analysis. In so doing, the actual death toll of 680,000 deaths from violence and imposed deprivation by 25 April 2025 (28 percent of the pre-war Gaza population of 2.4 million), posits an extraordinary picture of unremitting carnage in which children and women are most impacted.”

This figure includes 136,000 deaths from violence and 544,000 from deprivation.  Out off the total number of 680,000, 380,000 are infants under five years of age, 479,000 children in total, and 63,000 women and 138,000 men.

The most frequently aired moral injunction stemming from the Shoa has been ‘never again’ – never again to racism, violence, and mass murder; never again to complicity, lying and cover-up.  Yet here we are, witnessing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, while not banning the use of words like genocide, occupation and ethnic cleansing has been reluctant to use them, preferring more sanguine terminology from ‘official’, largely Israeli sources.

It also continues to cite figures on civilian deaths from the Health Ministry which, according to Nader, is a 10-fold under-counting of Gazan fatalities – an assertion placed on the US Congressional Record. Interestingly as reported by eminent epidemiologist, Professor Devi Sridhar, President Trump’s recent slip that there are presently 1.7 million Gazans implies a 0.7 million shrinkage of the territory’s pre-war population of 2.4 million.

Clearly, with Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza, the ongoing killings at the notorious Humanitarian Aid Foundation sites, and an officially declared famine, the death toll will rise sharply. The assault on Gaza City and the forced expulsion of its remaining residents will of course make a horrendous situation even worse. What journalists, academics, activists, and others should not abide – morally or politically - is the reporting of fatalities that ignores the true scale of the carnage in Gaza.

We have a duty to those who have lost their lives to properly remember their passing.