The death count trap: Why tallying victims won’t stop Israel’s genocide

The words ‘killed’, ‘injured’, ‘maimed’, and the like often lose a great part of their meaning when they are repeated so relentlessly. Take, for example, a headline like: “13 Palestinians Killed in Gaza, Others Wounded.” Though many of us can still feel a deep sense of sadness over such a tragedy, the news itself becomes less shocking over time. According to figures produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israel has killed and wounded a total of over 250,000 Palestinians since the start of the genocide in 2023. The tally is updated daily because the killing never stops. On July 23, six Palestinians were killed in Gaza. A day earlier, 13 were killed, and the day before that, […]