Keystone-SDA
One study estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the war between Israel and Hamas was about 40% higher than that of the Palestinian territory’s health ministry. The latter reported 37,877 deaths until June 30.
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January 10, 2025 – 01:01
(Keystone-ATS) The study published Friday in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet, however, estimates that between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths were caused by traumatic injuries in Gaza during this period.
The probable number of deaths estimated by the Lancet is 64,260 deaths until this date, a figure 41% higher than that of the Hamas Ministry of Health. This number represents 2.9% of Gaza’s population before the war, “or approximately one in 35 inhabitants”, according to the study.
The toll only concerns deaths due to traumatic injuries and therefore does not include indirect deaths, such as those due to lack of care or food, nor the thousands of missing people believed to be buried under the rubble.
On Thursday, the enclave’s health ministry said that 46,006 people had died during the fifteen months of war, mainly in Israeli bombings.
« Capture-recapture »
In Israel, the bloody attacks committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 left 1,208 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures. Israel has questioned the credibility of Gaza’s health ministry figures, but they have been deemed reliable by the UN.
Researchers in the study published by The Lancet used a statistical method called “capture-recapture” that has already been used to estimate the number of deaths in other conflicts around the world, which is based on three lists. The first is that provided by the Ministry of Health and includes bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.
The second came from an online survey launched by the health ministry, in which Palestinians reported the deaths of their loved ones. The third was established from obituaries published on social networks such as X, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.
“Good estimate”
“We only included in our study people whose death had been confirmed by their relatives or by morgues and hospitals,” Zeina Jamaluddine, epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told AFP. main author of the study.
The researchers then examined the death lists for duplicates. “We looked for overlaps between the three lists […] in order to obtain a total estimate of the population killed,” said Ms. Jamaluddine.
Patrick Ball, a statistician with the US-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group who was not involved in the study, used the capture-recapture statistical method to estimate the number of deaths in conflicts in Guatemala, in Kosovo, Peru and Colombia. He assured that this proven technique had proven itself over a long time and described the study as a “good estimate”.
Kevin McConway, professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, said there was “inevitably a lot of uncertainty” when making an estimate from incomplete data.
10,000 missing
However, he found it “admirable” that the researchers used three methods of statistical analysis to verify their estimates. “Overall, I find these estimates reasonably convincing,” he said.
The study authors urged caution, explaining that lists published by hospitals do not always indicate the cause of death, so it is possible that people with non-traumatic health problems, such as a heart attack, were included, which could lead to an overestimation.
There are, however, other reasons why the toll of the war in Gaza may be underestimated. The study did not take into account missing people. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said around 10,000 missing Gazans were believed to be buried under the rubble.
