The UN human rights office said on Friday that nearly 70 percent of the deaths it verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

The UN’s tally since the beginning of the war, in which the Israeli army is fighting Hamas militants, includes only the deaths it has been able to verify from three sources, and the count continues.

The 8,119 verified casualties are far lower than the toll of more than 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month war. But the UN breakdown of the victims’ age and gender supports the Palestinian claim that women and children make up a large proportion of those killed in the war.

This finding indicates “a systematic violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality,” the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.

“It is essential that allegations of serious violations of international law are dealt with through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence is collected and preserved,” said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human. Rights said Volker Turk.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report’s findings.

The Israeli military, which launched its offensive in response to the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas fighters killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 250 hostages, says it is taking care to avoid harming civilians in Gaza.

It said about one civilian was killed for every fighter, a report it attributed to Hamas, which said the Palestinian militant group was using civilian facilities. Hamas has denied using civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as human shields.

The youngest victim a day old

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva that the deaths included in the report were verified by three sources including neighbors, family members, local NGOs, hospital records and UN staff . on the ground.

“The numbers are of course massive compared to previous years, so we need time to catch up and check,” he said, adding that he believed the UN’s final tally would likely be similar to the Palestinian one.

The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest a 97-year-old woman, the report said.

Overall, those aged 18 or under accounted for 44% of victims, with five and nine-year-olds making up the largest age group, followed by those aged 10 to 14 and then those aged up to four years inclusive.

This broadly reflects the demographics of the enclave, which the report says reflects an apparent failure to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties.

It showed that in 88 percent of cases, five or more people were killed in the same attack, indicating the Israeli military’s use of weapons with a wide-area effect, although it said some deaths may have been the result of stray projectiles from Palestinian armed groups.