As Israel’s relentless onslaught on Gaza enters its 561st day, the suffering endured by Palestinians has reached harrowing new depths. More than 2,100 families have been completely wiped off the civil registry—entire lineages erased in a war that many fear amounts to nothing short of ethnic cleansing.

According to the latest update, over 62,000 people have been killed or remain missing, among them more than 18,000 children and 12,400 women. At least 11,000 individuals are still unaccounted for, many believed to be buried beneath the rubble of what were once homes, schools, and hospitals. The scope of the devastation is unfathomable—over 12,000 massacres have been recorded, with thousands of families reduced to a single surviving member.

Hospitals, already under immense strain, have received over 51,000 victims, while more than 116,000 people have been wounded. The numbers include 4,700 amputees and 17,000 individuals in urgent need of long-term rehabilitation. With critical medical shortages and the Israeli blockade preventing emergency evacuations, 22,000 patients—many of them cancer sufferers—face a dire fate. Seven mass graves have reportedly been uncovered in hospitals previously raided by Israeli troops.

Beyond the physical toll, this war is dismantling Gaza’s very social fabric. Over two million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, with hundreds of thousands living in makeshift tents ill-suited to shield them from hunger or the cold. The education system lies in ruins, with 13,000 students killed and over 500 schools either damaged or destroyed. Nearly 800,000 children have been robbed of their right to learn.

In what appears to be a deliberate policy of starvation, Israeli forces have targeted food centres and shelters. Dozens of civilians, including children, have died from malnutrition and exposure—slow deaths in a land under siege. The human cost has also devastated the ranks of first responders: over 1,400 medical workers, hundreds of journalists, aid workers, and civil defence personnel have been killed, while many others have been detained.

Gaza is being emptied—not just of its buildings, but of its people, its memory, and its future. And yet, as this catastrophe unfolds, the world remains largely silent.