Israel killed 40,000 people in Gaza. What does that look like?

If 40,000 people joined hands, standing apart, to form a human chain, they could surround the entire island of Manhattan.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in the 320 days since October 7.

This includes almost 17,000 children. That’s 2.6 percent of all children in Gaza who are now dead.

At least 53 children have been killed every day since October 7, and 72 men and women are killed in Israeli strikes, every single day.

At least 10,000 are missing under the rubble, most of them presumed dead.

Visualising 40,000 people

Madison Square Garden in New York City is a landmark indoor arena. Its total capacity is 19,500 people.

The number of people killed in Gaza would fill up Madison Square Garden twice.

If 40,000 people were standing tightly next to each other in Paris, the first person would be at Notre-Dame and the last would be in Versailles. The line would be 24 kilometres long.

If 40,000 people joined hands, standing apart, to form a human chain, they could surround the entire island of Manhattan.

It would take an average person walking at 5km per hour 12 hours to walk from the beginning of that chain to the end.

Driving those 60 kilometres would take a sedan car driving at 50 kilometres per hour, 72 mins to pass the entire line. That’s more than an hour of drive time.

Of the 40,000 people killed, 18.4 percent are women, and 33 percent are children.

In Gaza’s pre-October 7 population of two million, almost half were children.

Of the more-than 40,000 people killed, nearly 17,000 are children. They could fill up 550 classrooms.

More than 500 schools being used as shelters have been targeted by Israel, most damaged and destroyed.

In the 10 months of war, an entire school year has been missed by Palestinian children in Gaza.