TEHRAN- The latest global explosive violence monitor report from Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) has reported a 122% rise in civilian fatalities in 2023, compared to the previous year. 

The AOAV report attributes the huge surge in bloodshed to the Israeli war on Gaza, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, highlighting that it "is a major cause for such a drastic increase". 

It is the largest death toll since the charity group, based in the British capital London, began tracking the killing of civilians from explosive weapons in 2010. 

Despite 64 countries being affected by explosive violence, the region of Gaza is notably at the top of the list. 

The number of civilian fatalities in Gaza from October, 7 until the end of December 31 far outweighs the number of civilian casualties in the Ukraine war throughout all of 2023 which has been reported as 8,351 civilian fatalities. 

The Israeli regime began its war on Gaza in October last year, with daily airstrikes, as well as missiles fired from Israeli warships. 

Other ground attacks using highly explosive devices such as Merkava tank shells and 155mm artillery shells, which are inherently indiscriminate, as well as white phosphorus have also played a major part in the indiscriminate Palestinian fatalities. 

In mid-December, a U.S. intelligence assessment revealed that nearly half of the Israeli munitions dropped on Gaza are unguided "dumb bombs" that pose a much greater threat to civilians, especially in a densely populated region such as the Gaza Strip. 
Such is the intensity of Israeli fire, from the air or the ground, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has bypassed Congress on at least two occasions to ship more weapons to the Israeli military to fire at civilians in Gaza. 

The report by AOAV also underscores how attacks launched from the air rose by 226% in a notable increase in weapons use, as well as a 56% rise in attacks launched from the ground. 

According to the report, the number of civilian fatalities last year exceeds the height of the war on Daesh terrorism in Syria and Iraq. 

AOAV says it tracks its data from reputable English-speaking news outlets, yet at the same time, the group makes clear it does "not capture all harm". 

In the occupied Palestinian territories, AOAV noted that "English-language media underreports the number of casualties caused". 

It pointed out that English-language media catalogs "perhaps only a third of the actual civilian deaths from specific incidents in Gaza". 

The group notes that "Furthermore, the use of explosive weapons in the occupied Palestinian territories is so frequent that it is difficult in many cases to attribute civilian casualties to specific incidents of use, as required by AOAV’s methodology. It is equally difficult to track rising injury or death tolls from specific incidents. For these reasons, AOAV’s data underrepresents the extent of harm caused by explosive weapons in the occupied Palestinian territories." 

AOAV says what it can capture are "patterns and trends". 

From this, the organization says that "it is clear that air-launched weapons account for the vast majority of explosive violence in Gaza," 

The group says the Israeli bombardment of Gaza represented "91% of incidents" and
caused "93% of civilian casualties". 

In essence, according to AOAV, the reputable English-speaking news media reported an underestimation of the actual death toll in Gaza, and still Palestinian fatalities at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza based on the same news outlets was the major cause for "such a drastic increase of civilians fatalities in 2023". 

The latest death toll from the Palestinian health ministry reports nearly 23,500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military attacks since October 7, last year. 

Thousands more have been reported as missing, presumably dead under the rubble of flattened buildings.
Iain Overton, AOAV executive director, told the Guardian that since October, 7 there had been "a massive spike" in incidents during the Israeli assault on the territory. 

He added that "Gaza almost overwhelmed our capacity to record each injurious reported strike."

Despite the very indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes in the enclave, the regime has yet to be held accountable for killing such a large number of Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom have been documented by the United Nations as being women and children. 

More than 10,000 children are among the fatalities as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza, and yet the world has refrained from imposing any form of punitive punishment on the Israeli military. 

The United States backing its number one proxy in West Asia by vetoing UN resolutions calling for a cessation of the indiscriminate Israeli attacks has essentially emboldened the regime to continue with its massacres against women and children. 

Israel has and continues to receive the green light from the White House to wage one massacre after the other. 

At the end of December, South Africa filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice against the Israeli regime, accusing the Israeli occupation of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and failing to prevent genocide.

On Thursday, the highest UN legal body in the Hague will hold its first hearing in South Africa’s 84-page filing to the court.