Researchers say the death toll in the Gaza war could be much higher

A study published in the medical journal The Lancet suggests that the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war may be much higher than official figures provided by the Hamas-run health ministry.

The British-led investigation covered the first nine months of the warwhich began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

It used ministry data, an online survey of relatives reporting the deaths, and obituaries. By June 30, 2024, an estimated 64,260 Palestinians had died from traumatic injuries, representing a 41% underreporting of deaths.

The death toll in Palestine has been a source of controversy, although the UN considers the health ministry’s figures to be reliable.

The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians the latest UN report said most of the confirmed victims during the six-month period were women and children.

Israel says Hamas data cannot be trusted. In August, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “eliminated more than 17,000 terrorists,” although it is unclear how they arrived at that figure. The IDF insists it only targets combatants and tries to avoid or minimize civilian casualties.

Israel does not allow international journalists from media organizations, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza, making fact-checking on the ground difficult.

The team behind the latest study used a statistical method called capture-recapture, a method used to estimate deaths in other conflicts.

The researchers looked at how many people appeared multiple times in different attempts to count the deaths. The level of overlap between these lists suggests that the number of deaths directly caused by traumatic injuries in the conflict may be much higher than hospital figures published by the Ministry of Health.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health releases daily updates on war casualties. It combines figures for deaths reported in hospitals, deaths reported by family members and deaths from “reliable media reports”.

The Lancet report estimated the death toll at between 55,298 and 78,525, compared with the 37,877 reported by the health ministry.

Report numbers can be much higher or lower depending on the technical details of the analysis.

For example, identifying deaths by “traumatic injury” in each data set can be difficult. The error could push the study’s estimates higher or lower.

The study also said that 59% of those killed, for whom gender and age data were available, were women, children and the elderly.

The war in Gaza was sparked by a Hamas attack that killed around 1,200 people and took 251 others back to Gaza as hostages. In response, Israel launched a massive military offensive against Gaza.

The Ministry of Health claims that the Israeli campaign has killed 46,006 people, most of them civilians.