Geneva—About 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, reported missing, or wounded since 7 October 2023 due to Israel's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a statement on Saturday, noting that the number includes those who now have long-term disabilities.

A total of 31,497 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed as of today, 13 January 2024, Euro-Med Monitor estimated. Of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Strip, 28,951 (92%) were civilians, including 12,345 children, 6,471 women, 295 health personnel, 41 civil defense personnel, and 113 journalists. Meanwhile, 61,079 individuals have been injured, hundreds of them critically.
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Euro-Med Monitor stressed the importance of South Africa's decision to file a complaint against Israel for committing genocide before the International Court of Justice, calling it a historical precedent and a first step toward holding Israel accountable at the international judicial level and breaking its immunity. The rights organisation emphasised that the lawsuit—no matter the outcome—puts genuine pressure on Israel, and that if the Court does decide to take immediate, temporary action as a first step, Israel and its allies will be forced to face even more expensive political, legal, and moral repercussions.

Both South Africa and Israel have completed, in the last two days, their respective pleadings before the Court, Euro-Med Monitor said. The International Court of Justice is currently reviewing the case and will be making a decision on the urgent, temporary measures that South Africa has requested, the most notable of which is an end to Israel's military actions inside and against the Gaza Strip.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor renewed its call for an international investigation into the widely documented violations that have occurred since Israel began its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and for the international community to work to end the state of impunity that Israel enjoys. Those responsible for Israel's crimes must be held accountable, said Euro-Med Monitor. The group demanded that all those who have issued and carried out the brutal orders against Palestinians in the Strip be brought to justice, and that every victim be fairly compensated.

...Speaking to CNBC in an interview in Davos, Switzerland, Blinken said there was a "new equation" in the Middle East in which Israel's Arab and Muslim neighbors were prepared to integrate Israel into the region but they were equally committed to a pathway to a Palestinian state. He said both the Arab states and Washington believe that until that issue is addressed, neither Israel nor the region will have peace, stability and security....

stalking.gov | Secretary Antony J. Blinken At a Conversation with Thomas Friedman (17.01.24)
FRIEDMAN:  and this will be my last question on the Middle East. One of the things you hear so often from people, given the high civilian casualties in Gaza is: Does the United States—do Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives, Muslim and Palestinian Christian lives, given the incredible asymmetry in casualties? And I've been asked that. I want to give you a chance to respond to that.
BLINKEN: No, period. For me, I think for so many of us, what we're seeing every single day in Gaza is gut-wrenching. And the suffering we're seeing among innocent men, women, and children breaks my heart. The question is:  What is to be done? We've made judgments about how we thought we could be most effective in trying to shape this in ways to get more humanitarian assistance to people, to get better protections, and minimize civilian casualties.

And at every step along the way, not only have we impressed upon Israel its responsibilities to do that, we've seen some progress in areas where absent our engagement I don't believe it would have happened. So there are a lot of—there are dogs that didn't bark. But that in no way, shape—way, shape, or form takes away from the tragedy that we've seen and continue to see. It's why we're at it relentlessly every single day. And all I can tell you, Tom, is just on a purely human level it's devastating, but it reinforces the conviction and the commitment to do two things: to do everything we can in this moment using our best judgment—and of course, we could be wrong about the judgments we're making—but to try to make a difference in the day-in, day-out.

But it also reinforces my conviction that there has to be— and there is—another way that answers Israel's most profound concerns and questions. Israelis have to live with security. They can't have a repeat of October 7th.  No country would accept a repeat of October 7th.

And I think not by way of justification but just by way of explanation, it's hard to overstate the psychological impact on the country as a whole of what happened on that day. And there are large swaths of the world—going back to one of the first things you said—where information technology, information environments [!] have been used and abused in such a way that large numbers of people don't believe October 7th actually happened.

They don't believe that Hamas ["NAZIs"] slaughtered men, women, and children, that it executed parents in front of their kids, that it executed kids in front of their parents, that it burned families alive. They don't believe it. And so of course, especially with that, everything that followed is even worse.

Here's what it comes down to, in my judgment. I think the biggest poison that we face around the world internally in our societies and externally in our relations with others is dehumanization—the inability to see the humanity in the other. And that applies in every direction. And when that happens, you get so hardened that you're willing to do and accept things that you wouldn't if the humanity of the other was front and center in your conscience.

So one of our challenges is to fight that dehumanization, to find ways to defuse it, to take that poison out.  And that's also a function of leadership.  We need leaders around the world who see that, understand that, and are prepared to act on that.