The official Palestinian report on the death toll in Israel’s war in Gaza likely underestimated the total number by 41% during the first nine months of the conflict, as Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure deteriorated, according to a statistical analysis.
The analysis was conducted by academics from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Yale University, and other institutions.
The researchers attempted to estimate the number of deaths during Israel’s aerial and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.
By June 30th of last year, the Ministry of Health in Gaza, governed by Hamas, reported 37.877 deaths in the war.
However, the new study uses data from the Ministry, online surveys, and obituary postings on social media to estimate that the number of deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time ranged between 55.298 and 78.525.
The study’s best estimate for the death toll is 64.260, which would mean that the Ministry of Health had underestimated the number of deaths by 41% up to that point.
Israel’s war in Gaza has so far killed at least 46.006 Palestinians and injured 109.378 since October 7th, 2023, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The war began on October 7th, 2023, after Hamas launched an attack that killed at least 1.139 people and took over 200 hostages.
In the early months of the war, the Ministry of Health’s official death count was based solely on bodies arriving at hospitals.
Later, other methods were included, such as distributing an online survey to the Palestinian population within and outside the Gaza Strip, asking for data on their ID numbers, names, ages, genders, locations of death, and sources of reports.
The study highlights that the capacity of the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health to maintain electronic death records was previously reliable but has now deteriorated due to Israel’s military campaign, which includes attacks on hospitals and other healthcare facilities and disruptions to digital communications.
On Thursday, health officials in Gaza stated that Al-Aqsa, Nasser, and the European Hospital are at risk of closure due to repeated Israeli attacks and supply blockades. The Kamal Adwan, Indonesian, and Al-Awda hospitals had already been forced to shut down.
Journalist Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, stated that many deaths remain unreported in the northern Gaza Strip, where bodies are being buried in house courtyards or on streets because victims of new Israeli offensives cannot be brought to besieged hospitals.
“The entire healthcare system in the northern part of the Gaza Strip is non-functional, with no proper mechanisms to record the number of casualties,” Mahmoud said.
He added that Al-Aqsa Hospital is overwhelmed due to the recent influx of wounded civilians, many of whom are women and children.
“Doctors are reporting an acute shortage of basic supplies, including surgical tools, antibiotics, and painkillers,” he said.
