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'Envying Those Who Died': Gaza Death Toll Tops 55,000 Since War's Start on Oct. 7
- Jack Khoury, Haaretz
- Jun 10
- 4 min read
With social collapse, mass starvation and displacement, the Gazans living through the war aren't marking the death toll: They're trying to survive. 'Violent men are taking control of humanitarian aid,' a social scientist in the Strip says
The number 55,000 no longer sounds exaggerated or unbelievable to Umm Ahmad, a young woman from central Gaza. Wednesday's announcement by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry that the death toll since the start of the war has surpassed 55,000, reaching 55,104, likely did not surprise her, as she has already lost several family members.
"People here have started envying those who have died or become martyrs because the future is so dark," she told Haaretz while preparing food for her children. "We've come to terms with the grief, but the grief hasn't come to terms with us. Even living day to day has become an impossible task."
The figure released on Wednesday is likely only partial. According to estimates from the Gaza Health Ministry and the Civil Defense organization in the Strip, the actual numbers are even higher, with thousands of Palestinians still buried beneath the rubble. The information published by the ministry has previously been reviewed by international agencies and foreign governments and deemed reliable.
The few hospitals still functioning across Gaza operate with almost no electricity, medication or staff. Some of the remaining medical teams work in darkness, sometimes relying on flashlights. They lack anesthesia and antibiotics, and they have no certainty they will survive the next Israeli airstrike.
"Those who don't die immediately live like the dead," a resident of Rafah, a southern Gaza city, who relocated to the nearby Muwasi area, told Haaretz. "Those who survive the airstrikes find themselves hungry, displaced, homeless and often hopeless."
With the renewal of the war last March and the tightening of the blockade on Gaza, poverty there has worsened. The cost of living has risen, and in the absence of a functioning economy, the financial transfer market has collapsed.
"If you try to send 100 shekels [approximately $28], only 60 arrive," he said. "Fees today are between 40 percent and 45 percent, and this isn't an economic system – it's a system of theft."
"Residents are busy searching for flour and sugar, asking: How will we feed our children? How will we survive until tomorrow? People have forgotten the casualties because they're caught up in day-to-day survival," he said. "Not everyone can steal, and not everyone can pay a thief to bring them a sack of flour for 2,500 shekels [approximately $700]."
Alongside hunger, Palestinians in Gaza are also grappling with displacement from their homes. Ahmad, for example, who evacuated with his wife and children from the northern Strip to Gaza City, found shelter in a building in the city's western neighborhoods. He told Haaretz that there is no more space there or in Muwasi in the south either.
"The question on everyone's mind is 'Where do we go?'" he says. "Everything is full, and there's nowhere left to lay our heads."
Mustafa Ibrahim, a Palestinian social researcher who returned to Gaza after the cease-fire, says mass death has become routine. "Fifty people are killed every day, and it has become a statistic rather than a cry for help. Gaza is full of victims, and the world remains silent."
With the rising death toll, some in Gaza are also examining the events from another angle. "Palestinian society in the Strip is breaking down," explains Ibrahim. "Young men – armed or violent – are taking control of humanitarian aid, and this phenomenon has already become a kind of 'street rule'."
According to him, this deepens the sense of helplessness and moral collapse. "In Rafah, people aren't afraid to steal anymore," he noted. "People are desperate, and in their eyes, everyone is responsible for what has happened – including Hamas, of course. People have lost trust. There's no law, no government, and no one to uphold human dignity. Everything is in a state of lawlessness."
A former official from the Palestinian Authority's Social Affairs Ministry says: "Gaza looks like a region stricken by plague, but it's not a plague –it's a drawn-out disaster." The official, who is still in the Strip, adds that the path to recovery is long: "Hunger, displacement, death, social chaos and a total loss of trust in every existing system. Even if the war stops tomorrow, it will take generations to rebuild what has been broken here."
Meanwhile, Umm Ahmad focuses on the present, in which residents struggle to meet even the most basic needs. "There are parents who spend hours thinking about how to answer their little child when he asks, 'Mom, what will we eat today?'" She also says that "Anyone who still holds on to hope is probably just lucky, because it's impossible to see hope in Gaza. If the border crossings open, we won't be ashamed – we won't stay here. Eyes no longer count the dead – they only look at the daily tally, and wonder who will die tomorrow."
(c) 2025, Haaretz
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