[Salon] Israel has killed many more people in Gaza than reported, top health study says

[Chas Freeman <cwfresidence@gmail.com>]

Israel has killed many more people in Gaza than reported, top health study says

More than 64,000 people in Gaza died violent deaths between October 2023 and June 2024.

The total death toll is likely higher because the figures exclude nontrauma deaths resulting from the disruption of health care, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation. | Saeed Jaras/AFP via Getty Images

January 10, 2025 

By Rory O’Neill

Israeli forces killed more than 64,000 people in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 — meaning the widely reported death toll was underestimated by 41 percent, a major study published Thursday in The Lancet found.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine measured traumatic injury deaths in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. The majority of the 64,260 deaths (59 percent) were women, children and elderly people.

Authors said the total death toll is likely even higher than that because the figures exclude nontrauma deaths resulting from the disruption of health care, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation.

Researchers arrived at the estimate based on an analysis of morgue records, an online survey and social media obituaries.

According to the study, figures produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza are an accurate minimum estimate of the death toll — but are still likely to be underreported. Officials in Gaza tallied 37,877 deaths as of June 30 last year.

POLITICO has reached out to the Israeli government for a response.

The figures come as a growing number of legal experts and NGOs accuse Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed as “false and outrageous.”

Human Rights Watch said last month Israel had deliberately cut off water from Palestinians, leading to thousands of deaths from dehydration and disease. 

Also last month, Amnesty International accused Israel of treating Palestinians as a “subhuman group” and warned that countries supplying arms to Israel, including the United States and Germany, were failing in their obligation to prevent genocide.

Israel has been waging a military offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 in retaliation for a violent attack by Hamas militants in Israel that killed more than 1,100 Israelis. It has crippled the leadership of Hamas, killing top commanders in the militant group, while leaving a swath of destruction across the coastal enclave.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November, accusing them of complicity in crimes against humanity in Gaza.