An official death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas by the Palestinian Ministry of Health likely underestimated the number of casualties by 41% by mid-2024 as the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure disintegrated, according to a study published on Thursday (9).
The statistical analysis, peer-reviewed and published in The Lancet, was conducted by academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions.
Using a statistical method called capture-recapture analysis, researchers sought to assess the number of deaths caused by Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza in the first nine months of the war, between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.
They estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries during that period, about 41% more than the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s official count. The study said 59.1% were women, children and people over 65. He did not provide an estimate of Palestinian fighters among the dead.
According to Palestinian health authorities, more than 46,000 people have been killed in the Gaza war.
The conflict began on October 7 after Hamas gunmen crossed the border into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli records.
The Lancet study said the Palestinian Health Ministry’s ability to maintain electronic death records had previously proven reliable but deteriorated during Israel’s military campaign, which included and other health facilities and digital communications disruptions.
Israel says it does its best to prevent civilian deaths and accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its operations, which the militant group denies.
Study method used in other conflicts
Informal reports suggested that a significant number of dead remained and were therefore not included in some counts.
To better account for these gaps, the Lancet study employed a method used to assess deaths in other conflict zones, including Kosovo and Sudan.
Using data from at least two independent sources, researchers look for individuals who appear on multiple death lists. Less overlap between the lists suggests that more deaths were not recorded, information that can be used to estimate the total number of deaths.
For the Gaza study, the researchers compared the official death count from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which in the first months of the war was based entirely on bodies arriving at hospitals, but which later began to include other methods; an online survey distributed by the Ministry of Health to Palestinians inside and outside the Gaza Strip, who were asked to provide data on Palestinian identity numbers, names, age at death, gender, place of death, and source of notification; and obituaries published on social media.
“Our research reveals a stark reality: the true scale of deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza is greater than reported,” lead author Zeina Jamaluddine told Reuters.
