Statistics can’t tell the story of civilian suffering in Gaza. Physical pain defies easy quantification. Emotional trauma is far more than a number on a psychological distress scale. Still, numbers can be enlightening — and damning. The Intercept has assembled a short primer and accompanying infographics to offer a glimpse of what a year of relentless Israeli attacks — and U.S. military support for Israel — has meant to the people of Gaza.

The Uncountable Dead

On the night of October 7, 2023, Israel bombed a home in the town of Abasan Al-Kabira, east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Eighteen members of one family, including at least five children and four women, were reportedly killed. At least one survivor 11-year-old Tala Abu Daqqa, was injured. Al Ghad TV, a local television station, reported that around 150 people had been injured in the Abasan area.

The attack, which Israel launched following raids by Hamas militants that killed Israeli civilians earlier that day, reportedly destroyed five residential buildings. “They hit us with two or three barrels of explosives and brought the entire buildings down,” Mohammad Abu Daqqa, a relative of the family, told CNN.

In the year since that strike, Israeli attacks on Gaza have never ceased. More than two million other Palestinian civilians have been killed, wounded, or displaced as a result.

Israeli attacks have killed almost 42,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 96,000 others in Gaza since last October, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. More than 10,000 Gazans are thought to be buried under the rubble littering the Gaza Strip.

A group of 99 American health workers who served in Gaza estimate the death toll is no less than three times higher than that current official count. In the appendix to a recent letter sent to the Biden administration, calling for an arms embargo on Israel, they estimated that the death toll is at least 118,908. “It is highly likely that the real number of deaths in Gaza from this conflict is far higher than this most conservative estimate,” they note.

More deaths are sure to come. Researchers, applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths – from causes like disease outbreaks, a lack of medical care, and shortages of food, water, and shelter – per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths that had been reported as of July, wrote in The Lancet, that “it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

America’s Constant Supply of Weapons

As the death toll has risen, the United States has ramped up its support for Israel.

Late last month, Israel announced it had reached a deal with the U.S. for an $8.7 billion aid package to support its ongoing military efforts. In August, the Biden administration approved five major arms sales to Israel, including 50 F-15 fighter aircraft, tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, air-to-air missiles, and 50,000 mortar rounds, among other equipment totaling more than $20 billion. While technically “sales,” the cost of these weapons is mostly paid by the United States since Israel uses much of the military aid Congress approves to buy U.S.-made weapons.

“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” said President Joe Biden recently, despite the fact that his administration acknowledged the likelihood that Israel has used U.S. weapons in Gaza in violation of international law.

“In the past year, the United States has sent thousands of bombs to Israel. These are the very same weapons that have killed Palestinian children and wiped out Palestinian families month after month,” John Ramming Chappell an Advocacy and Legal Fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, or CIVIC, told The Intercept. “Israeli military attacks, often using weapons made in the United States, have leveled countless homes, destroyed schools and hospitals, and made Gaza all but unlivable.”

Lost Limbs, Bombed Hospitals

For every person killed by the Israeli military and American bombs, many more are suffering injuries, medical deprivation, and malnutrition. As of July, at least one quarter of those injured in Gaza were estimated to have........

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