Gaza war death toll could be significantly higher, researchers say

The Palestinian death toll in the war in Gaza may be much higher than the numbers predicted by the Hamas-run health ministry, a study published in the medical journal Lancet suggests.

The UK-led investigation spanned the first nine months of the warwhich began when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

It used information from the ministry, an online survey of family members reporting deaths, and death records. It is estimated that up to 30 June 2024, 64,260 Palestinians have died from serious injuries, which means a mortality rate of 41%.

Israel’s ambassador to the UK said “any information that comes out of Gaza cannot be trusted” and serves Hamas.

The UN considers the Ministry of Health’s figures to be reliable.

The ministry’s statistics do not distinguish between fighters and civilians, but a the latest UN report he said most of those confirmed for six months were women and children.

Israel says Hamas figures cannot be trusted. In August, the Israeli army (IDF) said it had “eliminated more than 17,000 terrorists”, although it is not clear how it arrived at this figure. The IDF insists that it only targets combatants and tries to prevent or minimize civilian casualties.

Israel does not allow international journalists from media organizations, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza, making it difficult to verify what is happening.

The team that conducted the latest study used a statistical method called “capture-recapture”, a technique that has been used to assess deaths in other conflicts.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine looked at repeated visits to try to calculate the death rate. The degree of overlap between the lists showed that the number of people who died from serious injuries in the conflict may be much higher than the medical statistics published by the Ministry of Health.

The news of the Gaza Ministry of Health changes the number of people killed in the war every day. It includes deaths recorded in hospitals, deaths reported by family members, and deaths from “reliable media reports”.

The Lancet report shows that 55,298-78,525 people have died, compared to 37,877 reported by the Ministry of Health.

The report’s figures may be higher or lower depending on the details of the survey.

For example, determining deaths and “fatal injuries” in any given population can be difficult. A mistake can push the survey up or down.

The study also reported that 59% of those killed for whom sex and age data were available were women, children and the elderly.

The war in Gaza began with an attack by Hamas in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and 251 were returned to Gaza as hostages. Israel launched a massive war in Gaza in response.

The Ministry of Health has said that 46,006 people, most of them civilians, have been killed by the Israeli campaign.