PARIS (Dispatches) – Research published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Zionist regime’s aggression on Gaza was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.
The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since the occupying regime launched its genocidal campaign on October 7, 2023 attack.
Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the war.
However the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.
The study’s best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.
That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population, “or approximately one in 35 inhabitants,” the study said.
The UK-led group of researchers estimated that 59 percent of the deaths were women, children and the elderly.
The toll was only for deaths from traumatic injuries, so did not include deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.
AFP is unable to independently verify the death toll.
On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of war.
The researchers used a statistical method called “capture-recapture” that has previously been used to estimate the death toll in conflicts around the world.
The analysis used data from three different lists, the first provided by the Gaza health ministry of the bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.
The second list was from an online survey launched by the health ministry in which Palestinians reported the deaths of relatives.
The third was sourced from obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.
“We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and the hospital,” lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said.
The researchers scoured the lists, searching for duplicates.
“Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on the overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed,” Jamaluddine said.
The United Nations warns that a lack of fuel supply in Gaza threatens to shut down more medical facilities across the besieged territory, putting the lives of patients and newborns at “grave risk”.
The UN’s condemnation of the “deliberate and systematic” attacks on Gaza hospitals came as relentless Israeli strikes killed more than 50 more Palestinians since Thursday.
Gaza health officials on Thursday said Al-Aqsa, Nasser and the European hospitals are at risk of imminent closure, after repeated Israeli bombardment and blockade of supplies.
The armed wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says most of the Israeli captives held in northern Gaza have gone missing, holding Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military responsible for their lives.
Al-Qassam Brigades made the announcement on Friday, as the Israeli regime continues its intensified bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory.
“Most of the enemy captives have gone missing due to the incessant Zionist aggression,” a source from the Brigades told Al Jazeera Arabic.