After the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by the terrorist group Hamas on Israeli civilians, the Arab world and much of the Western Left accused Israel of genocide in Gaza as its military aimed to rid the Gaza Strip of its Islamist rulers. The war produced immense civilian casualties, as the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. As of early October 2025, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claims that Israel has killed 67,000 Palestinians during the war. Of course, the ministry has been caught red-handed fabricating statistics several times during the war, and Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and soldiers.

It is fair and necessary to criticize Israel’s killing of civilians, but even if the numbers given by Hamas are accurate, it would mean the Israeli military has killed roughly 3% of Gazans over more than two years — in a war Israel did not start. Israel has military superiority over Hamas on all levels, and if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and company truly sought ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the nuclear-armed regional superpower has the weapons and technology necessary to do just that. For perspective, the civilian casualties from the second Iraq War range from 100,000 to 600,000, depending on which reports you choose to believe.