An official Palestinian count of direct deaths in the conflict between Israel and Hamas likely underestimated the number of casualties by around 40 percent in the first nine months of fighting as the Gaza Strip’s health infrastructure crumbled, according to a published study. on Thursday.
The peer-reviewed statistical analysis published in the lancet The journal was produced 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 attempted to assess the death toll from Israel’s devastating air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.
They estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries during this period, about 41 percent higher than the Palestinian Health Ministry’s official count. The study said 59.1 percent were women, children and people over 65 years of age.
It did not provide an estimate of the Palestinian fighters among the dead.
According to Palestinian health officials, more than 46,000 people have died in the Gaza conflict, out of a pre-conflict population of around 2.3 million.
A senior Israeli official, commenting on the study, said Israel’s military did everything possible to avoid civilian casualties.
“No other army in the world has taken such wide-ranging measures,” the official said. “These include giving advance notice to civilians to evacuate, establishing safe zones and taking all necessary measures to prevent harm to civilians. The figures provided in this report do not reflect the situation on the ground.”
The conflict began on October 7 after Hamas gunmen stormed the border with Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
He Lancet The study said the Palestinian Health Ministry’s ability to maintain electronic death records had proven reliable, but deteriorated under Israel’s military campaign, which included raids on hospitals and other health care facilities and disruptions to digital communications.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its operations, which the group denies.
Study method used in other conflicts
Anecdotal reports suggested that a significant number of the dead remained buried in the rubble of destroyed buildings and were therefore not included in some counts.
To better account for such gaps, the Lancet The study employed a method used to assess deaths in other conflict zones, including Kosovo and Sudan.
Using data from at least two independent sources, investigators search for people who appear on multiple murder lists. Less overlap between the lists suggests that no additional deaths have been recorded, information that can be used to estimate the total number of deaths.
For the Gaza study, the researchers compared the Palestinian Health Ministry’s official death count, which in the first months of fighting was based entirely on bodies arriving at hospitals, but later included 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 identification numbers, names, age at death, sex, place of death and source of information; and obituaries published on social networks.
“Our research reveals a stark reality: the true magnitude of deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza is higher than reported,” said lead author Zeina Jamaluddine. Reuters.
Dr. Paul Spiegel, director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Reuters that the statistical methods used in the study provide a more complete estimate of the number of deaths in the conflict.
However, the study focused only on deaths caused by traumatic injuries, he said. Deaths caused by indirect effects of the conflict, such as disrupted health services and poor water and sanitation, often cause large excess deaths, said Spiegel, who co-authored a study last year that projected thousands of deaths due to the crisis. public health generated by the conflict.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) estimates that, in addition to the official death toll, around 11,000 other Palestinians are missing and presumed dead.
In total, PCBS said, citing Palestinian Health Ministry figures, Gaza’s population has fallen 6 percent since the start of the conflict, as some 100,000 Palestinians have also left the enclave.
