Deaths from Israeli attacks in Gaza undercounted by 41 percent, study finds

According to a study, the official Palestinian death toll from Israel’s war in Gaza was likely to be lower by 41 percent in the first nine months of the conflict as the Gaza Strip’s healthcare system failed.

Academics from Yale University, Yale University, and other institutions participated in the peer-reviewed statistical analysis that was published in The Lancet journal on Thursday.

The researchers used a statistical technique called capture-recapture analysis to calculate the death toll from Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and June 2024.

Up to June 30 last year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza reported a death toll of 37, 877 in the war.

However, the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55, 298 and 78, 525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.

The Health Ministry had underreported the death toll point by 41%, according to the study’s best death toll estimate of 64, 260.

According to the study, over 59.1% of the victims included over-65 years of age were women, children, and people. It did not estimate the number of Palestinian suicide bombers.

That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population, “or approximately one in 35 inhabitants”, the study said.

The toll included deaths from a lack of access to medical care or food as well as the thousands of missing people thought to be buried beneath rubble, but this only included deaths from traumatic injuries.

Israel’s war in Gaza has killed at least 46, 006 Palestinians and wounded 109, 378 since October 7, 2023, the territory’s Health Ministry says.

At least 1, 139 people were killed in Hamas-led attacks across the border with Israel on October 7, 2023, which set the stage for the conflict.

The official Health Ministry death count was entirely based on the arrival of hospital-bound bodies in the first months of the conflict.

It later came to include other methods, including distributing an online survey to Palestinian people inside and outside the Gaza Strip, who were asked to provide data on their ID numbers, names, age at death, sex, location of death, and reporting source.

The Palestinian Health Ministry’s ability to maintain electronic death records, according to the Lancet study, has previously proven to be reliable, but has since deteriorated as a result of Israel’s military campaign, which has included disruptions to digital communications and raids on hospitals.

On Thursday, Gaza health officials said the Al-Aqsa, Nasser and European hospitals are at risk of imminent closure, after repeated Israeli attacks and blockades of supplies. Already, al-Awda, the Indonesian, and Kamal Adwan hospitals have been forced to close.

According to Hani Mahmoud, a journalist for Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, many deaths in the north of the Gaza Strip are unreported, with bodies buried in homes or on the streets as a result of an ongoing Israeli offensive against hospitals there.

Without a proper system to track the number of casualties in the area, he said, “the entire healthcare system in the northern part of the Strip is out of service.”

“Israel’s relentless attacks are making it increasingly challenging to keep track of mass killings.”

He claimed that a recent influx of injured civilians, many of whom were children and women, had caused the Al-Aqsa Hospital to become engulfed.

“Doctors are reporting an acute shortage of basic supplies, including surgical tools, antibiotics and painkillers”, he said.

The Israeli military is escalating its attacks on residential areas, according to Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, who was speaking from Deir-el-Balah on Friday.

According to him, “Medical teams in al-Awda Hospital continue to report that the Israeli army is bulldozing all residential areas in the hospital’s immediate vicinity as more deterioration occurs among medical cases left there,” and that this could indicate a further Israeli escalation is occurring in the coming days.

Source: Aljazeera