New Study Puts True Death Toll in Gaza at Around 100,000

Sunday, 11 May 2025 6:34 PM

Palestinians make their way over the dirty rubble, past destroyed buildings in the Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. (AFP)

A new study suggests that up to 109,000 people have been killed since the start of Israel's genocidal campaign across the besieged Gaza Strip in October 2023. 

The study published in The Lancet reviewed hospital records, online civilian death submissions, and an independently compiled list based on social media obituaries and death announcements.

By comparing the three lists, researchers concluded that the number of people killed in Gaza was significantly higher than the figure reported by authorities in the besieged Palestinian region.

The study estimates that the real death toll could be 46–107% higher than reported, meaning that between 77,000 and 109,000 people have died in Israeli attacks. Based on current numbers, that is the equivalent of between 4% and 5% of Gaza’s pre-war population. 

Israel describes all those killed in Gaza as “fighters,” even as most of them are women and children.

The latest figures by the Gaza Health Ministry stated that Israel has killed 52,787 Palestinians in Gaza, stressing that it could not reach or register many victims, who are either under the rubble or in areas that Israel’s military continues to target.

The ministry’s data are compiled from hospitals across Gaza and an online form that allows families to report killings, often in areas inaccessible due to continued attacks.

The findings cast new light on the underreported deaths in Gaza, especially amid ongoing Israeli destruction of health infrastructure and communication networks that further hinder accurate documentation.

Additionally, deaths caused indirectly by the war, such as from the collapse of medical services, may not be fully represented.

“A definitive count of how many have died in this war will be difficult, even after it ends,” the researchers concluded. “And that may still be a long way off.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned that 5,500 Palestinians have lost their eyesight or are at risk of blindness due to the ongoing Israeli genocide.

Israel’s relentless air and artillery strikes keep killing more civilians in Gaza, as the regime presses ahead with its genocidal war in the besieged territory.

Nineteen months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the regime keeps hammering the devastated strip, leaving a trail of death and destruction behind.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel plans to seize the entire besieged Gaza Strip and will hold it indefinitely.

Figures show that 90 percent of Gaza's current population of 2.1 million people has been displaced, lacking access to sufficient shelter, food, life-saving medical services, clean water, education, and livelihoods.