October 16, 2026

Victims in Gaza

I do not believe we can really know how many people have been killed, but let us consider Hamas’s figures reliable. It may seem strange, but those numbers actually seem low to me when we compare them with the bombing campaigns of the Second World War.

Let me recall a few figures: excluding the atomic bombs, the bombing raid with the highest death toll was that of Tokyo, with 100,000 deaths, followed by Hamburg, with 40,000, and, in third place, Dresden (the most famous), with “only” 35,000 deaths.

During the siege of Leningrad, more than 600,000 people are estimated to have died (some say a million) from hunger and privation.

In the war in Yemen, meanwhile, the death toll is estimated at around 400,000 (the Houthis, who came to prominence only with Gaza), yet nobody talks about it.

In more than two years of war in Gaza, fewer people have died than in Tokyo in a single day.

I have been asking myself for quite some time: why?