How many civilians were killed in Gaza?
'The best available evidence shows that Israel took extraordinary care to protect Gazan non-combatants. Statistics are pliable. The facts are stubborn'
Earlier this month an Israeli informally affirmed that approximately 70,000 Gazans have died since war began on October 7, 2023. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) disclaimed the statement as not reflective of Israeli data.
Yet, it seemed to confirm the total figure compiled by the Hamas Health Ministry. What does 70,000 mean other than a number? As Mark Twain observed, “Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.”
Numerous data science studies have critiqued the Hamas Ministry of Health statistics for their unreliability, deception and propaganda function, including three published studies in which I was a co-author with Prof Lewi Stone. These forensically analysed the Hamas data. They showed that most Gazan deaths were not civilian casualties of war. On multiple occasions, Hamas was caught out lying about numbers and women and children killed.
If you were to believe the Hamas Ministry of Health data at face value, there has been no natural death or infant mortality in Gaza for over two years. However, prior to this miracle, natural deaths were about 6000 per annum in Gaza, amounting to well over 12,000 across the past two and a half years of war.
If we subtract just 12,000 for natural deaths in Gaza, that leaves 58,000 total deaths remaining. Notably, almost none were due to starvation or famine, despite UN predictions to the contrary. Thus, the 58,000 can be attributed to the violence of war.
How many of those dead were Hamas or other terrorist combatants? The Hamas Ministry of Health deliberately does not provide information on causes, circumstances, place or date of deaths, although it has the information. It admits to no combatant mortalities, they are really immortal.
The IDF estimates that it has killed 25,000 combatants, however. When we deduct 25,000 combatants from 58,000 total, 33,000 remain. They represent the likely total of civilian casualties.
Some 15 per cent to 20 per cent of these Gazan civilians were killed by Hamas, both accidentally and deliberately. Approximately 13 per cent of Hamas rockets misfired or fell within Gaza. For example, the Hamas statistics include 500 civilians alleged to have died at the Al Ahli Hospital on October 17, 2023, in a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket attack gone wrong. Video footage also shows Hamas enforcing and executing Gazan civilians who challenged its absolute power, whether by insurrection, grabbing international aid, fleeing their positions as civilian shields or by daring to protest. A reasonable estimate, adding rocket misfires, friendly fire and lethal enforcement, is that 6000 Gazan civilians were killed by Hamas.
This leaves us with 27,000 remaining civilian deaths. These are attributable to military action by the IDF. This number is comparable to the number of Hamas combatants killed, a ratio slightly greater than 1:1.
It embedded itself within the civilian population and infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and congested urban dwelling areas. It built over 500 km of tunnels under an area of 365 km². This is the most extensive defensive and offensive tunnel system, most deeply embedded within a civil population, in world history. Hamas allowed no civilians into the tunnels and Egypt offered them no refuge either. There is no historical comparison for this most urbanised war ever.
In 2022, the UN Secretary-General lamented rising civilian casualty ratios globally, up to 9:1 in urban warfare. Yet the civilian to combatant casualty ratio in Gaza is closer to 1:1. It indicates extensive Israeli precautions taken to protect the civilian population, such as prior warnings, evacuation corridors and humanitarian support, as well as Israeli precision targeting of combatants and targeting protocols to protect civilians. Israelis knew that they would be vilified, nevertheless.
The best available evidence shows that Israel took extraordinary care to protect Gazan non-combatants. Statistics are pliable. The facts are stubborn.
The extraordinarily detailed, contemporaneous and prolific Hamas datasets depict a lurid scene. They are imbibed by a global network of collaborators thirsty for rhetoric of contemporary blood libel.
Hamas’s war strategy was premised on civilian mass sacrifice. The inevitability of Hamas’s military defeat was hitched to its willingness to kill the Gazan civilian population, who could serve as statistics for falsified accusations of atrocities. It worked.
Disinformation has been Hamas’s main and most important wartime achievement.
Gregory Rose is professor of international law at the University of Wollongong.
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