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Published by Haaretz
Palestinians in central Gaza after an Israeli strike, on Wednesday [Jan 8, 2025]. Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP

Palestinians searching the site of an Israeli strike in central Gaza on Wednesday. Credit: Eyad Baba/AFP

The site of an Israeli strike in Gaza City last week. Credit: Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP

Published by Palestine Chronicle
Israeli massacres in Gaza have led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. (Photo: via social media)
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By Palestine Chronicle Staff
Jan 10, 2025

A new study published in The Lancet estimates Gaza’s death toll at 64,260 in the first nine months of the war, 41% higher than official figures, highlighting the devastating impact of the ongoing genocide.

A recent study published in The Lancet estimates the death toll in Gaza to be 64,260 between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024, a figure 41% higher than the official reports from Gaza’s Health Ministry. The study, conducted by a UK-based team of researchers, analyzed data from multiple sources, including Gaza’s Health Ministry, online surveys, and social media obituaries, and concluded that the toll is significantly underreported by the official figures.

As of June 30, 2024, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 37,877 deaths resulting from the ongoing genocide. However, the new study estimates that between 55,298 and 78,525 individuals died from traumatic injuries by that date. The study’s best estimate of 64,260 deaths shows that the official death toll was underreported by 41%. This figure represents 2.9% of Gaza’s pre-war population, or approximately one in every 35 residents.

The research found that 59% of the victims were women, children, and the elderly. Importantly, the figures only account for deaths from traumatic injuries and do not include fatalities from the lack of healthcare, food, or sanitation. The study also does not consider the thousands of missing persons, many of whom are believed to be buried under rubble.

Methodology
The researchers used a statistical technique called “capture-recapture,” which has been employed in past studies of war zones worldwide. The method involves cross-referencing multiple data sources to estimate the total death toll. The data for this analysis came from three lists: Gaza’s Health Ministry list of identified bodies, an online survey initiated by the Health Ministry where Palestinians reported the deaths of their relatives, and obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.

“We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and hospitals,” said lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on these overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed,” she added.

Expert Opinions
Patrick Ball, a statistician at the US-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group who was not involved in the research, confirmed the validity of the capture-recapture method. “The technique has been used for centuries, and I believe the researchers have reached a good estimate for Gaza,” Ball stated.

Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, also praised the researchers for their approach. “There is inevitably a lot of uncertainty when making estimates from incomplete data,” he said. “But it’s admirable that the researchers used three other statistical analysis approaches to check their estimates. Overall, I find these estimates reasonably compelling,” he concluded.

Limitations and Criticisms
Despite its thorough methodology, the study acknowledges some limitations. The data does not account for the 10,000 Gazans believed to be buried under rubble, and the death toll might still be underestimated due to indirect causes of death such as a lack of healthcare, food, water, sanitation, or the spread of disease. These factors have become increasingly problematic in Gaza since October 2023.

In a non-peer-reviewed letter published in The Lancet in July, another group of researchers suggested that the Gaza genocide could ultimately result in 186,000 deaths when accounting for indirect causes. However, the new study disputes this projection, stating that it might be “inappropriate due to obvious differences in the pre-war burden of disease” in Gaza compared to other genocide zones like Burundi and East Timor.

The Bigger Picture
Jamaluddine stressed that while there may be criticism of the study from various sides, it is crucial to acknowledge the overwhelming mortality caused by the genocide. “We already know that there is a lot of high mortality,” she emphasized, speaking out against the “obsession” of debating the death toll figures.

Throughout the genocide, Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of Gaza’s Health Ministry’s figures. However, the United Nations has consistently upheld the reliability of the ministry’s data.

While uncertainties remain and the death toll may continue to rise as more information becomes available, this new study provides a clearer picture of the devastating impact of the genocide on Gaza’s population.

(PC, Agencies)
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Researchers Say Study Shows Gaza Death Toll Far Exceeds Official Figures

A study published in The Lancet estimates the death toll from 'traumatic injury' may be around 70,000, with 60% being women and children – far higher than Hamas' Health Ministry reports and without counting deaths from starvation, disease or cold

by Nir Hasson for Haaretz
Jan 11, 2025

The number of "traumatic injury deaths" in the Gaza Strip since the war there began is significantly higher than what is reported by the enclave's Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, according to a new study in Lancet published on Friday.

The latest ministry estimate is that 45,541 people have been killed in the war and that around 10,000 missing people are buried under rubble. According to researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, this figure is actually just a minimum.

The Gaza Health Ministry published a list of 40,717 names in October. In the absence of an alternative tally or evidence to disprove the ministry's figures, international organizations, foreign governments and the foreign media rely on them entirely. Nonetheless, Israeli sources regularly reject the ministry's estimates, arguing that they are misleading.

The current war is the first round of fighting in which Israel has not officially counted the number of Palestinians killed. The only figure that the military has published since the start of the war is that 14,000-17,000 terrorists have been killed.

According to the military website, 14,000 terrorists have very likely been killed, with the probability of another 3,000 dead being low to medium. No new figure has been provided since August, even though the fighting has intensified in recent months and dozens of people have been killed in Gaza almost daily. The military does not provide any count of the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the fighting.

The current study is based on an analysis of three lists of the dead: Gaza Health Ministry hospital lists, an online survey by the Gaza Health Ministry and obituaries published on social media. The researchers statistically analyzed the overlap between the three lists.

According to the military website, 14,000 terrorists have very likely been killed, with the probability of another 3,000 dead being low to medium. No new figure has been provided since August, even though the fighting has intensified in recent months and dozens of people have been killed in Gaza almost daily. The military does not provide any count of the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the fighting.

The current study is based on an analysis of three lists of the dead: Gaza Health Ministry hospital lists, an online survey by the Gaza Health Ministry and obituaries published on social media. The researchers statistically analyzed the overlap between the three lists.

"If I give you three lists and you see that they overlap a lot, you will tend to conclude that there are unlikely to be that many people, if any, that have not been captured by the lists," Prof. Francesco Checchi, an epidemiologist and health expert, and one of the study's authors, says. "Whereas if you see very little overlap, you will tend to infer that there are maybe many others out there that have not been counted."

The study examined the first eight months of the war and concluded that the number of deaths was 64,260 – 41 percent higher than the estimate published by the Gaza Health Ministry at the end of June. The researchers only included traumatic injury deaths and did not consider mortality from hunger, disease and cold. The study also does not discuss the latest list of fatalities, but the researchers estimate that the number of dead in Gaza is now around 70,000.

The study says, "Our analysis supports the accuracy of the Ministry of Health reported mortality figures but suggests that these are to be treated as a minimum estimate subject to considerable under-reporting."

Asked where all these dead are, Checchi says that it's reasonable to assume that the number of bodies buried in the rubble or in areas that cannot be reached is significantly higher than the ministry's estimate. It is also possible that there are many more families that have been wiped out, leaving no one to report their deaths, he says.

"It is not at all unusual that there is under-reporting of mortality in these kinds of fairly chaotic military operations," Checchi says. "But if we... just look at how well reporting systems tend to work in crisis settings, then we always see that they deteriorate and then they therefore fail to actually count everyone."

Checchi says that the level of mortality in Gaza is rare compared with other conflicts in the world – both the overall rate, about 3 percent of the population, and the large number of women and children directly killed by traumatic injury. The study said that young men in Gaza are at higher risk of mortality relative to their proportion of the population, but that 59 percent of the dead are women, children under the age of 18 and people over the age of 65.

Checchi adds that he was in Darfur in 2004, "and there we saw extremely high levels of mortality as well, but very, very focused in adult men primarily. with child mortality largely due to disease."

Haaretz contacted experts unaffiliated with the study to give their opinion on its findings. They said that the researchers' method of measurement was widely accepted in the field of military conflicts. Prof. Michael Spagat, an internationally renowned researcher of mortality in armed conflicts at the University of London, says that the statistical method used by the researchers has previously been used in other conflicts.

"This is a method that has been applied before in conflict settings with some success in some settings, e.g., Kosovo and a notable failure in Peru," he says. "This is a serious effort. It can't easily be dismissed... It's really complicated so, inevitably, close scrutiny will reveal flaws. But I think that the main estimates are credible."

Historian Lee Mordechai from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who writes about and closely tracks reports from Gaza, says he believes the study is the "most methodologically sound estimate of Palestinian mortality estimates published to date, and this estimate is going to remain in the debate even if there are others."

However, he pointed to a possible flaw: the lists based on social media posts might miss the cause of death and include deaths that were not caused by trauma. "There is a lot of missing information and they use statistics to fill it, but I understand that this is standard or even above the standard," he said.

Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, an epidemiologist at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev and head of health policy at the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, says of the study, "Scientifically, it's legitimate, but there may be biases here. The cause of death isn't always defined, and the question may be raised whether all the dead [were killed] by Israel or if people killed by Hamas are included here."

He adds, "But all in all, the article shows that mortality and disease morbidity in Gaza are dramatic and the health system there is in a catastrophic state. We don't want to compete for whether it is better or worse than Sudan, and we'll probably never know the real numbers.

Davidovitch further says that [f]or Israel's sake, especially if it wants to see itself as a modern country, it cannot stand by, and it must work with the international community to rebuild Gaza's health care system. It's impossible to sever this from the political decisions about 'the day after.' We must end the war and bring the hostages home."
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