Bowen: Five new realities after four weeks of Israel-Gaza war

But in past conflicts, Palestinian casualty statistics have been considered accurate by international organisations.

But even if that proportion is as high as 10%, which is unlikely, it means that Israel is on course to have killed as many Palestinian civilians in just over a month as Russia has killed in Ukraine since February 2022.

The UN human rights office has said that so many civilians have been killed and wounded in Israeli air strikes that it has serious concerns that the attacks are disproportionate and could be war crimes.

Before he took off, he said: “When I see a Palestinian child – a boy, a girl – pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building, that hits me in the gut as much as seeing a child from Israel or anywhere else.”

Mr Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for most of the time since 2009 – after an earlier spell between 1996 and 1999 – has argued consistently that Israel does not have a partner for peace.

More than 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israel began a ground operation in Gaza

As President Biden and many others have said, the only possible chance for avoiding more wars is to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel