Counting the dead in Gaza
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza could lead to the deaths of more than 186,000 people, according to a letter published in the British medical journal, Lancet. Written by scientists who model the direct and indirect impacts of war on health, the letter estimates that the number of Palestinians killed by Israel is likely to exceed by far the official death toll of 38,000, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry.
Collecting casualty figures in Gaza is an increasingly difficult task for Palestinian officials due to the destruction of much of Gaza’s infrastructure. The letter explains that the Gaza Health Ministry has had to use “information from reliable media sources and first responders” as well as its usual methods of counting bodies brought in to hospitals or people who have died in hospital to get a realistic measure of deaths.
According to the authors, this makes the data less robust. “Consequently”, they note, “the Gaza Health Ministry now reports separately the number of unidentified bodies among the death toll. As of May 10, 2024, 30 percent of the 35,091 deaths were unidentified.”
This development was designed to improve data quality. Yet Israeli politicians have jumped at the opportunity to undermine the veracity of the official death toll, contesting the Gaza Health Ministry’s figures even though they have been accepted as accurate by the state’s intelligence services and international organisations such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
Pro-Israel politicians and media have likewise tried to discredit or downplay the destruction Israel has inflicted on Gaza, casting doubt on the figures published by the “Hamas-run” health ministry. They have suggested that Hamas purposely inflates the casualty figures to demonise Israel.
The scientists’ revelation that the number of reported deaths is likely an underestimate is a searing indictment of those arguments. There are thousands of bodies still buried under rubble. According to the letter, “the UN estimates that by February 29, 2024, 35 percent of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed, so the number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10,000”.
But the impact of Israel’s so far nine-month war on Gaza reverberates beyond the direct harm from violence. As the authors explain, “even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases”.
Already, the widespread destruction of healthcare and housing infrastructure, severe shortages of food and water, the lack of safe refuge for internally displaced persons and the substantial loss of funding to the United Nations Relief Works Agency have led to thousands of deaths.
Based on scientific modelling of the direct and indirect effects of war, the authors estimate that “such indirect deaths range from 3 to 15 times the number of direct deaths ... Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”. As a proportion of the population, this means that 8 percent of the 2.3 million total population in the Gaza Strip are likely to have been killed in this war.
An immediate end to Israel’s assault on Gaza is urgent and necessary. But to prevent further deaths, it must be accompanied by large-scale rebuilding of the infrastructure and housing necessary to sustain social life, including schools, hospitals, water treatment plants and electricity generation facilities.
A realistic assessment of the life lost in Gaza is not only a legal requirement for Israel, but also, as the authors note, an important part of the historical record. There will be no justice for the Palestinian people without truth. The dead deserve to be counted.
