According to research published in The Lancet Medical Journal, the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war may be much higher than reported by the Hamas-run health ministry.
The UK-led study covered the first nine months of the warThat began when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
It used data from the ministry, an online survey reporting deaths of relatives, and cadavers. It estimated that as of 30 June 2024, 64,260 Palestinians had died from traumatic injuries, meaning 41% of deaths were underreported.
The Palestinian death toll is a source of controversy, although the United Nations considers the Ministry of Health's figures reliable.
Ministry statistics do not distinguish between combatants and civilians although a Recent UN reports He said, within six months, most are women and children.
Israel says Hamas figures cannot be trusted. In August, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “eliminated more than 17,000 terrorists”, although it is not clear how it arrived at this number. 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, to enter Gaza freely, making fact-checking on the ground difficult.
The team behind the latest study used a statistical method called “capture-recapture,” a technique that has been used to assess deaths in other conflicts.
The researchers looked at how many people came back repeatedly in different attempts to count the deaths. The degree of overlap between these lists suggests that the number of direct deaths from traumatic injuries in collisions may be significantly higher than hospital statistics published by the Ministry of Health.
Gaza's Ministry of Health updates daily the death toll in the war. It compiles hospital-recorded deaths, deaths reported by family members and deaths from “reliable media reports”.
The Lancet report estimated the death toll at between 55,298-78,525, while the Ministry of Health reported 37,877.
Reported statistics may be meaningfully higher or lower depending on the technical details of the analysis.
For example, it may be difficult to identify deaths by “traumatic injury” in each set of data. Getting it wrong can push study estimates higher or lower.
The study also said that 59 percent of those for whom gender and age information was available were women, children and the elderly.
The Hamas attack triggered a war in Gaza that killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to Gaza. In response, Israel launched a massive military attack on Gaza.
The health ministry says the Israeli operation has killed 46,006 people, most of them civilians.