0
Data organized by Israeli Military Intelligence suggest that 83% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza from the beginning of the military offensive in Palestinian territory until May 2025 were civilians.
The information was obtained in a joint investigation from the British newspaper The Guardian with Israeli-Palestino +972 Magazine and the local Hebrew-language vehicle Call.
Read too
According to the vehicles, a confidential database used by Israel’s Defense Forces (FDI) identified 8,900 killed in Gaza as combatants of the Islamic Jihad Palestinian or the fundamentalist group Hamas.
Gaza Ministry of Health calculations, administered by Hamas, point out that at least 53,000 Palestinians were killed in the same period, indicating that five out of six fatalities were civilians.
Sources heard by The Guardian point out that since 1989, such civil fatalities was observed only at Rwanda genocide in 1994, the Srebrica Muslim Bosnians in 1995 and the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022.
International law prohibits attacks against people who do not participate directly in the fighting. The investigation also revealed that military commands allowed soldiers to label victims as combatants even without confirmation. Another database obtained by the vehicles listed more than 47,000 Palestinians as members of Hamas.
Army used count, says newspaper
Although publicly rejecting the counting of the dead by the Gaza authorities, sources heard by the report state that the Israeli Army considered such estimates.
They also indicate that the number of 8.9 thousand was taken as the official counting of FDI -killed militants, although politicians and military personnel quote larger numbers to the press and even argue that all the dead in Gaza would be combatants.
Retired Israeli general and former counselor of Benjamin Netanyahu, Itzhak Bik told The Guardian that “there is no connection” between the numbers of publicly announced dead militants and reality.
According to the vehicles, the Israeli army did not directly contest data on Hamas members deaths. In a brief statement, the FDI later stated that “the figures presented in the article are incorrect”, without specifying what information it would be.
Israel says it defends itself from threat
The Israeli government argues that its attacks are preventive, in defense against the performance of Hamas. The clashes began in October 2023, when the Palestinian group attacked the south of Israel, made 251 people hostage and left 1,200 dead. The organization is classified as a terrorist by countries such as the United States and the European Union.
The urban character of the conflict contributes to the high number of killed civilians, experts say, a problem that adds to allegations of shot Palestinians while waiting for humanitarian aid. 75% of Palestinian territory is currently occupied by Israeli forces today and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has already approved plans to capture the city of Gaza, the most important urban center in the region.
Netanyahu and his ministers also reiterate their plan to “conquer” Gaza and concentrate the Palestinian population in the southern territory, with a risk of permanent displacement to other countries. Critics argue that the strategy leads to forced displacement and is not based on purely defensive military goals.
The high number of dead and widespread hunger in the territory also leads to accusations of genocide, something that the Israeli government rejects.
Read more in, partner of the Metropolis.
