The widely “accepted” figure for Palestinian deaths in Gaza is more than 63,000. That is horrific enough , but the number is more likely nearer 300,000. And our media don’t care.

On 20 July last year the Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association, commented:

“In recent conflicts, … indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or eve more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

Using that same very conservative multiple of four indirect deaths to every direct death, the current death toll now in Gaza would be at least 252,000.

Ralph Nader estimated that by June last year the Palestinian death toll was at least 200,000. “The undercount is staggering,” said Nader, …. “The US and Israel want a low number. Instead of themselves estimating — which they don’t want to do — they cling to Hamas’ [figures], and Hamas doesn’t want a realistic number because they don’t want to be seen as unable to protect their own people. So, they developed these criteria: to be counted, the dead must first be certified by hospitals and morgues [which barely exist]. “ The whole thing is one death camp now. It’s easily 200,000 deaths in Gaza,” wrote Joshua Frank.

Adam Rzepka, a researcher at Montclair State University and a co-founder of Montclair States Chapter of the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine commented:

“The minimum scientifically plausible number of traumatic deaths only — immediate deaths from bullets, bombs, and demolished buildings — in the Gaza genocide is currently more than 115,000.

“The minimum scientifically plausible number of deaths attributable to the genocide overall is more than 460,000.

“Anyone who claims to rely on the best scientific consensus today must report the current death toll in the Gaza genocide as ‘ more than 115,000' violent deaths or 'more than 460,000 overall’,” he said.

We will only be able to count the dead when the genocide ends. But the death toll will be far greater than the 63,000 today that Israel, the US and Hamas want us to accept.

Our so-called leaders have used every excuse possible to deny the facts of the genocide – that criticism of Israel is antisemitic, that opposing genocide threatens social cohesion. And going on about a two-state solution and recognition of Palestine, while important in the long term, does little to address the genocide that we see every day.

Our “leaders” won’t call it a genocide because that will require action. Instead, we have words, words, words.

In April last year, Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the Rwandan genocide “a period of unspeakable brutality and humanity”. That was easy for a genocide 30 years ago, but she fails such language now over genocide in Gaza.

We need real action – banning all trade with Israel, stopping the sale of arms to Israel for direct and indirect use and recalling our ambassador in Tel Aviv and telling the Israeli ambassador to leave Canberra.

Israel has become a criminal state. It is illegally occupying vast areas of stolen Palestinian land. It is an apartheid state. Now it is committing genocide. It may not recover.

Why have those who support Israel taken no action to try and stop the war criminal Netanyahu and his crazed ministers? For the sake of Israelis, as well as Palestinians, they should have spoken up long ago. But they allowed the Zionist lobby to run roughshod over them.

Overwhelmingly, nations, as expressed in the United Nations General Assembly and elsewhere, have called for an end to the genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has made it clear in the last few days that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

As Jeffrey Sachs, an American Jew, has pointed out the overwhelming voice of humanity is on the side of the people of Palestine. “Last December in the UN, 172 countries, with more than 90% of the world population, voted to support Palestine’s right to self-determination. Israel and the US were essentially isolated in their opposition. Similar overwhelming majorities are repeatedly expressed on behalf of Palestine and against the actions of Israel.

“Israel’s thuggish government now counts solely on US support, but even that may not be there for long. Despite Trump’s intransigence and US Government attempts to stifle pro-Palestinian voices, 58% of Americans want the UN to recognise the State of Palestine, compared to only 33% who do not. Moreover, 60% of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.”

Western media has been the great enabler of the genocide. In their racism, Western media have consistently discounted the knowledge and bravery of Palestinian journalists, who have been telling the truth despite unending Israeli lies. Our legacy media have made it clear that it believes that Western journalists are much more credible than Palestinian journalists. We are encouraged to believe that we don’t really know what has been going on in Gaza unless we hear it from trustworthy Western media!

Chris Hedges, in his Substack of 1 September, pungently described Western media failure. “Palestinian journalists, targeted and assassinated by Israel, pay as many great correspondents do, with their lives, although in far greater numbers. Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza…. Since 7 October, Israel has killed more journalists than in the US Civil War, World Wars 1 and 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined….

“Colleagues of these Palestinian journalists in the Western press broadcast from the border fence with Gaza, decked out in flak jackets and helmets where they have as much chance of being hit by shrapnel or a bullet as being struck by an asteroid. They scurry like lemons to briefings by Israeli officials. They are not only enemies of truth but also the enemies of journalists doing the real work of war reporting….

“They do tremendous damage. They peddle false narratives. They mask reality, they serve as witting or unwitting propagandists. ..The barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press violate a fundamental tenet of journalism, the duty to transmit the truth to viewers or readers. It legitimises mass slaughter. It refuses to hold Israel to account. It betrays Palestinian journalists; those reporting and being killed in Gaza. And exposes the bankruptcy of Western journalists, whose primary attributes are careerism and cowardice.”