An “independent” Israeli report, based on experts and analysts, estimated the number of deaths in Gaza by about 100,000, since the seventh of October 2023, about twice the number announced by the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Last Monday, the Ministry of Health in Gaza revealed the last death toll in Gaza, and it was estimated at 55,202, including 17,121 children and 9,126 women.
However, researchers and experts, according to a lengthy investigation of the Hebrew newspaper “Haaretz”, confirmed that the number of martyrs in Gaza is “much more than” the numbers announced by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, considering that hunger, disease and Israeli shooting at food distribution centers made the war in the sector one of the bloody wars in the twenty -first century.
While Israeli official speakers denied the statements of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, claiming that they are amplified and exaggerated, international experts confirm that these numbers “with all the horrific embodiment of it”, not only reliable, but “may be very conservative compared to reality”, according to an investigation conducted by the Hebrew newspaper “Haaretz”.
Professor Michael Spagat, an economist at the Holway College at the University of London, and a global expert in violent conflicts, has published with a team of researchers a more inclusive study so far on the issue of deaths in the Gaza Strip.
With the help of the Palestinian political researcher, d. Khalil Al -Shaqaqi, the team conducted a survey of 2000 families in Gaza, which includes nearly 10,000 people, and concluded that until January last, about 7,200 people died in Gaza as a result of violence during the war, the majority of whom were due to Israeli munitions.
But at that time, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip had estimated the death toll since the beginning of the war at 45,660 people, in other words, the Ministry of Health data reduced the real number by about 40%, according to “Haaretz”.
The study has not been subject to a review of the peers yet, as it was published as an initial copy, but its results are very similar to the results of a study conducted in completely different methods, and researchers from the London College of Health and Equatorial Medicine published last January. This group also estimated the disparity between the data of the Ministry of Health and the real numbers by about 40%.
Another report, published this week by Matthew Gabriel Cukril, a PhD student in history at the London College of Economics, and was conducted for the benefit of “Work against Armed Violence”, also indicates more numbers than those reported by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, as Cukril and his team examined the names of a thousand children out of three thousand children whose Ministry of Health has removed their names from its lists, and they concluded that despite the deletion, there is insignificant evidence on Most of these children were killed.
During the first year of the war, researchers and doctors published various estimates about the excessive death rate, most of them were very exaggerated, and according to the new survey, the number of excessive deaths until January is 8540.
This is a huge number by all accounts, but it is low compared to the estimates that indicated that tens of thousands will die in Gaza due to hunger and disease.
And on the reasons for the great rise in the numbers of deaths, after exceeding the first year of the war, experts confirm that the preventive measures that were effective in the first year were faded during the first half of last year, and it became clear that Gaza residents are increasingly lacking the ability to protect themselves from excessive deaths.
The displacement of 90% of the residents of the sector and the collapse of the health system led to low vaccination rates. In addition, exposure to cold, heat, accidents, crowding and diseases in the camps of tents in which the majority of Gaza population now lives, made them more at risk.
The lack of food and the disruption of a large part of the United Nations activities in Gaza, in the wake of the full siege of 78 days from 2 March to the 19th of May, and the partial blockade that has lasted for more than a month since then, caused a shortage of vitamins, minerals and proteins; What negatively affects the immunity of Gaza residents.
During this period, the continuous destruction of hospitals and the rest of the medical infrastructure in the sector increased significantly since the resumption of hostilities, and from all these developments, it is very likely that Gaza will continue to face waves of excessive deaths in the near future, according to the estimate of Spagat.
Data collected and published by Spagat indicates that the percentage of women and children who were killed as a result of violence in Gaza exceeds twice the percentage in almost all recent conflicts, including, for example, civil wars in Kosovo (20%), Northern Ethiopia (9%), Syria (20%), Colombia (21%), Iraq (17%), and Sudan (23%).
Other data found in the study, the percentage of the dead to the population. “I think we may have reached approximately 4% of the dead population,” says Spagat.
“I am not sure of another case in the twenty -first century, which reached this high level,” he added.
