The number of deaths in Israeli attacks in Gaza is 41 percent lower, the study reveals | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Official Palestinian death toll in Israel’s war in Gaza they likely reduced the number of casualties by 41 percent in the first nine months of the conflict as health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip crumbled, according to the study.

The peer-reviewed statistical analysis published Thursday in The Lancet was conducted by academics from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University and other institutions.

Using a statistical method called capture-capture analysis, the researchers attempted to estimate the death toll in Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza between October 2023 and the end of June 2024.

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

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

The study’s best estimate of the number of deaths was 64,260, which would mean the Department of Health underreported the number of deaths by 41 percent since then.

The study estimated that 59.1 percent of those killed were women, children and people over the age of 65. She did not give an estimate of the number of Palestinian fighters among the dead.

That number represents 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population, “or roughly one in 35 residents,” the study said.

The balance only refers to deaths from traumatic injuries, so it did not include deaths from lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under the rubble.

Israel’s war in Gaza is killed at least 46,006 Palestinians and 109,378 wounded as of October 7, 2023, the territory’s health ministry says.

The war began on October 7, 2023, after Hamas-led attacks across the border with Israel killed at least 1,139 people and led to the capture of more than 200 people.

In the first months of the war, the Ministry of Health’s official death toll was based solely on bodies arriving at hospitals.

Other methods were later incorporated, including the distribution of an online survey to Palestinians inside and outside the Gaza Strip, who were asked to provide information on their identification numbers, names, age at death, gender, place of death and source of report.

The Lancet study noted that the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s ability to maintain electronic death records previously proved reliable, but has currently deteriorated due to Israel’s military campaign, which has included attacks on hospitals and other health facilities and the disruption of digital communications.

On Thursday, Gaza health officials said Al-Aqsa, Nasser and European hospitals in danger of imminent closureafter repeated Israeli attacks and supply blockades. Kamal Adwan, Indonesian and al-Awda hospitals have already been forced to close.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, said many deaths go unreported in the northern Gaza Strip and bodies are buried in backyards or on the streets as victims recover Israeli offensives in the area cannot be brought to besieged hospitals.

“The entire health system in the northern part of the Strip is out of order, without any proper mechanism to record the number of casualties in the area,” he said.

“Mass killings are increasingly difficult to track during Israel’s relentless attacks.”

He said Al-Aqsa Hospital was now overwhelmed by the recent influx of injured civilians, many of them women and children.

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

Reporting from Deir-el Balah on Friday, Al Jazeera journalist Tareq Abu Azzoum said the Israeli army was escalating its attacks on residential areas.

“Medical teams at al-Awda Hospital continue to report that the Israeli army continues to bulldoze all residential houses near the hospital amid increasing deterioration among medical cases left there, which could be a sign of further Israeli escalation to take place in in the coming days,” he said.

Israel has repeatedly said it is working hard to avoid civilian deaths and has accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover for its operations, which the group has denied.