The numbers of dead in Gaza don’t add up – and there is no easy explanation
Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war that started on October 7, the number of casualties in Gaza has been a subject of heated debate. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, the number now stands at more than 30,000 dead, with no distinction made between civilian and combatant casualties. In previous rounds of fighting in the Strip, the total number of deaths reported by the Gazan authorities have been found to be broadly accurate, not differing significantly from estimates produced by the UN or IDF. There have, however, always been disputes over the civilian/combatant split. The latest war in Gaza provides a different data challenge. As noted in a recent report by “The Washington Institute for Near East Policy”, the scale of the current war has forced changes in the way data is collected by the authorities in Gaza. While in previous rounds of fighting, the numbers were based on official hospital records, this time an increasingly large percentage of reported deaths are coming, not from doctors, but from what the Health Ministry refers to …