Talk:Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war/Archive 2

Archive 1

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Archive 3

70% women/children claim - outdated

From the intro paragraphs: "The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: over 33,091 have been killed, 70% of them are women and minors."

This is an outdated claim. The MOH no longer claims that 70% (or 72%) of those killed are women and children. They explicitly dissociate themselves from the claim, which they made for over five months with earliest mention on October 18 [1], in a April 1 Sky News Article. The relevant section of the article (emphasis mine):

"Of the 21,703 identified fatalities whose details have been shared by the Hamas-run health ministry, 13,207 were women, children or elderly (61%).

Until recently, however, the ministry had been reporting a figure of 72%.

Mr al Wahaidi told Sky News that this was a "media estimate". He was not able to explain the basis for this estimate or who had produced it.

Since speaking to Sky News, he has stopped using this figure in his reports for the health ministry. It continues to be used by the government media office, a separate branch of Gaza's government." [2]

The 72% women/children claim was last made in the 3/23 [3] MOH Health Sector Emergency Report and dropped in the next report published 3/27, when the MOH began to instead say that a majority of those killed were women and children. [4] In the April 1 report, they dropped that formulation and have since not included any claims about the overall demographic breakdown of fatalities in the HSE reports. [5]

The current citation for the 70% figure, which this article states as fact rather than an MOH claim, also includes this section:

"Gaza's health ministry says 70% of those killed in the territory are women and children. Its most recent breakdown of casualties recorded in hospitals shows women and children make up 58% of those deaths. Al-Qudra could not explain the discrepancy." [6]

Beyond the MOH dropping the claim (though the GMO persists with it [7]), many analysts came to the conclusion that the 70% claim was inaccurate, including Prof. Michael Spagat, who is a recognized expert in the field. In an April 21 article analyzing a 4/1 data release by the MOH, he concluded the following:

"First, the percentage of women and children killed does seem to be very high, roughly 60%, but the oft-cited claim that 70% of the Gazans killed in the conflict are women and children seems increasingly untenable." [8]

The remainder of the Spagat article contains a number of critical points concerning incomplete data and concerns with the MOH's media reports collection methodology, but those are deserving of their own post.

There is no reason to include a claim (stated as fact, no less) which the MOH no longer makes, which the available data does not support, and which recognized experts whose previous pieces are already cited in the article hold is inaccurate.

[1] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4052

[2] https://news.sky.com/story/amp/israel-hamas-war-health-system-collapse-in-gaza-leaves-authorities-struggling-to-count-the-dead-13107279

[3] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5224. Claims can be found on page 2 of the reports for [3], [4], and [5]. All MOH HSE reports are also archived at the following link: https://archive.org/details/moh-gaza-health-sector-emergency-reports/

[4] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5237

[5] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5258

[6] https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234159514/gaza-death-toll-30000-palestinians-israel-hamas-war

[7] https://t.me/mediagovps/2744

[8] https://aoav.org.uk/2024/analysis-of-new-death-data-from-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns/ 38.104.28.58 (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree with you, Dr Michael Spagat is as good an expert as we're going to find on the subject. The data collection system is rather broken and it is hard to be that sure about any figure now. The hospital figures and ratios are almost certainly very different from the actual figures, so who knows what the actual figures are with any sort of crediblity. About all we can say now is that the totals they give are a lower bound on the actual deaths. NadVolum (talk) 00:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Dr. Spagat also argues against assuming that the MOH claims are a lower bound. From his most recent article, right below what was previously quoted (again, emphasis mine):

"Second, the announced total number of Gazans killed in the war, now exceeding 33,000, may seem plausible but it is not a documented fact. This figure includes roughly 13,000 deaths that have, apparently, been entered into an unavailable database using an unknown methodology. The short description of sources contributing to this figure has just shifted from “reliable media sources” to that plus first responders. First responders can, potentially, provide useful estimates of numbers of people, (e.g., trapped under rubble). However, victims covered by such estimates might eventually be captured by the hospital system and/or be reported through the publicly available form. Thus, we should dismiss the common claim that, because many of the dead are trapped under rubble or are missing for other reasons, the announced totals are undercounts. To the contrary, there seem to be at least two channels, aside from hospitals, through which such deaths can be captured. [1]

That the MOH has not been willing to give any more detail on the "reliable media sources" is a major driver of uncertainty. Dr. Spagat also found significant overlap between the self-reported deaths and the hospital records (over 15% of the self-reports were duplicates) -- that's unsurprising, since those who have lost family members are likely to report everyone to be sure they are counted, even if they may have been registered through a hospital/morgue. Without knowing more about the media reports methodology, it is difficult to gauge the rate of duplicates it has. The media reports have also fluctuated enormously since April 1, with the same magnitude of revisions to self-reports or the hospital reports on the same day -- that is unusual and may indicate that media reports are in part being used as a slush category to avoid downward revisions in the total claim.

[1] https://aoav.org.uk/2024/analysis-of-new-death-data-from-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns/ 2601:152:4C83:D60:54F2:F129:12DC:1F31 (talk) 05:29, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

He is not saying it is not an undercount, he is saying that there is a possibility that due to overlaps in the counting it is an undrrcount. And that's true as regards comparing it to their original system, the counting is now a mess. However as fao compared to the total actual deaths the possibility of it being an undercount would require that their estimate of the missing they have given before has been far too high or there is some massive collusion outside of the Health Ministry when it would be much easier to do it within. I don't know why he has said something like that when the current undercount is pretty clear or as he says plausible. He never says it is not actually reasonable or plausible. That overlap probably explains why some figures have been revised down, especially for men where if they would be more likely to be away from home or a militant. Of course the 'studies' by Israeli propanda groups have just said these revisions down show the Ministry of Health is fiddling the figures so the figures can't be trusted and are probably much lower. What point would be served by them revising figures down when they're supposedly inflating them? NadVolum (talk) 13:27, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

That is a misread of what Spagat says. His point can't be made much more explicit than the section I italicized. The point makes itself: with two large pools of data (self-reports and media reports) that can capture those under the rubble or missing, you can't assume an undercount.

Overlaps in the counting would result in overreporting, not underreporting. Overlap can't explain why media reports moves both up and down in conjunction with revisions to hospital counts and self-reports -- if you cut overlaps, the overall total should drop as a result, but instead what is observed is media reports increasing as an offset.

But that is outside of Prof. Spagat's point, which he makes quite clearly: "Thus, we should dismiss the common claim that, because many of the dead are trapped under rubble or are missing for other reasons, the announced totals are undercounts." 2601:152:4C83:D60:A9F2:AD3:9EF9:274C (talk) 14:53, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Even if all the extra from outside the hospitals is discounted - which is just stupid as they're practically out of action, what he says just doesn't make much sense as far as I can figure out. I suppose he has to be put in as he is an expert on the subject but I wouldn't remove anything because of him yet because what he is saying would come under WP:EXTRAORDINARY. NadVolum (talk) 11:29, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

You cant on one hand accept Hamas ran Ministry of Health records and numbers as true, and when the same entity reports that the actual death count is lower - you suddenly ignore it becauae the system muat be broken? Elyasaf755 (talk) 16:33, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to him saying the figures should be lower. What I'm objecting to is the idea that the reduction or errors is anywhere near enough to say that the number of deaths in Gaza is lower than what they have registered. It is fairly easy to see that there would have to be as huge manipulation of the figures for a number of months to do that, I can't see how to do it without doing something like discarding all the deaths registered outside the hospital system, saying nearly all the missing that they previously counted as under the rubble have now been recorded and all the dead militants have been included in the count of men and the IDF haven't killed anybody for the last couple of months. Basically it is a WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim. NadVolum (talk) 18:14, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Gazan Causulties are Incorrect

According to data analysis of the Gaza Ministry of Health report there are "21,703 deaths but 440 have duplicate IDs, 470 have no IDs and 792 have the wrong number of digits in their IDs. A further 1,486 have invalid IDs even though they do have the requisite 9 digits.[1] The remaining 18,515 deaths all have listed sexes but 219 are missing ages. In short, roughly 1/7 of the entries in the new data release have quality problems.", so the numbers are not even close to the 34k reported on this Wiki page. Moreover, according to the same analysis there are at most 6,520 dead Gazans under the age of 18, which is not even 1/3 of the death count.

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/analysis-new-death-data-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns Elyasaf755 (talk) 11:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes there are problems with the hospital data. And the overall casualty figures. The figures for children outside the hospital is much higher. Children make up half the population and a very large percentage of the dead are from large bombs which don't somehow avoid children. When the hospital system was more intact the percentage of children was quite a bit higher. It is far more likely they are not being taken to the remaining hospitals which can't treat them properly and are regularly attacked. If you really though they were making up the figures don't you think they would have inflated this figure? NadVolum (talk) 12:13, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

This ia according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, they published a detailed spreadsheet with all the information of the people that died, sums up to 21,703 people in total. They did inflate the numbers, as the analysis shows, but they couldnt inflate it too much; the list contains duplicates, imaginary names, invalid IDs (IDs of 1 and 2 digits), etc... this wiki details about the death toll in Gaza needs to be fix, as even according to Hamas figures relevant to April 1st, the numbers are much smaller than reported, as I mentioned above. Elyasaf755 (talk) 16:27, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Every single error is a duplicate or made up? And even with all the 3000 identified with problems rather than the 440 identified as duplicate it really wouldn't make all that much difference. You are saying there is some reason to ignore the whole 18,515 deaths registered outside the hospital system because of quality problems with some of them? And that the three remaining hospitals are doing a marvellus job of recording all the deaths and there's no-one missing under the rubble? And all the militants are included in the figures? Or what kind of thing are you trying to say? Does it not occur to you that if they were making up all this up that it would be fairly easy to just have an Excel macro generate stuff with all this data in okay or do you just think oh they're terrorists they make things up including working to generate all these different types of error? This is getting like the Iraq war when everytime they had some brilliant idea about where the weapons of mass destruction weere hidden and then checked and they weren't found they saif Saddam musdt be even more cunning and evil than we originally though. Perhaps they put in the errors to fool us via a clever programme so we think they are evidence to show they weren't machine generated. NadVolum (talk) 18:36, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure how 500 duplicate ID errors out of the 100,000 or so people that have passed through the hospital system as casualties of some sort is really surprising given the situation on the ground. I mean, have you seen the footage from the facilities? It's incredible they're even still helping people at all, let alone recording any data. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Random ref tag in 'Civilian to military ratio' section

There's a random `</ref>` in the fifth paragraph of the 'Civilian to military ratio' section. Someone ought to remove it. Vladmashk (talk) 21:03, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Have removed that - thanks for pointing it out. NadVolum (talk) 23:30, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

The comparison with Ukraine war is wrong

"The total civilian death toll would surpass Ukraine's total of 9,614, as of 10 September 2023, including around 600 children" Ukrainian source have estimated there were 75000 killed people in Mariupol alone, and that the total death toll in the war is vastly underestimated because of Russian occupation of the area. Source: Russia scrubs Mariupol's Ukraine identity, builds on death | AP News If everybody takes the unproven claims of Hamas' health ministry, then we definitely should go with what Ukrainian officials say. 2A00:A041:2C22:700:CEFB:FC9D:38F1:CA9 (talk) 14:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Gazan Health Ministry is supported as either accurate or understated by both the United States:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-update/senior-us-official-suggests-gaza-death-toll-may-be-higher-being-cited

And Israel:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll

The point on Ukrainian casualties being unreliable is true, however it should be noted that the Gazan casualties are only of those found who's bodies have been identified; there are a massive number of unidentifiable bodies, earthed mass graves, and bodies trapped under rubble which are not included in the statistic. From this perspective, both Ukrainian and Gazan casualties are undercounted for similar reasons. Neurolimal (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

In general, it makes sense to say that they would both be undercounted for those reasons. However, the statistics given for Ukraine are from a UN agency that specifically counts only the deaths it has been able to personally verify and identify.

Both Ukraine and Russia's governments try to prevent each other from knowing what the real casualty numbers are. It's part of their war strategy. That has made it wildly difficult for the UN to verify and identify deaths. Especially civilian deaths.

Hamas uses the opposite strategy: report all the deaths it knows of, just don't clarify which ones are civilians. So in Gaza, there's much more data available on deaths than in Ukraine.

The only reason we have the 75,000 number for Mariupol is that the AP did the in-depth investigation mentioned above, and talked to multiple people that Russia had tasked with removing bodies from the streets and keeping track of the numbers.

([1]https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-erasing-mariupol-499dceae43ed77f2ebfe750ea99b9ad9)

There have been other deep dives into Russia's military tactics in Mariupol and how lethal they were, including one journalist's documentary that I believe just won an Academy Award. It seems very likely that the 75,000 number for Mariupol is accurate.

Since Ukraine is much larger than the Gaza Strip, and Russia has taken other Ukranian cities, it seems particularly misleading to state that either the civilian or total deaths in Gaza exceed those in Ukraine. Oakling (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

The evidence does show that those remarks were wrong, more have been killed in Ukraine than Gaza. I'm not certain what one can be done about those cited remarks though unless artices saying the opposite can be found.

As to your speculations about saying the casualties are higher or lower, you'd need citations. It is far too easy for people to believe what they speculate and not look for or see evidence for the opposite. That's why citations are needed in Wikipedia. NadVolum (talk) 09:53, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

“Disputed”

The death toll is not disputed. Foreign agencies don’t doubt it, the Israeli government doesn’t doubt it, US government government officials say its higher and in reality the death toll is a massive undercount.

considering the “um actually health ministry is khamas” argument then a better word to use would be “controversial”. The only numbers that have come up instead of GHM was those stating it was higher, and the IDF estimating that 20,000 were killed, back when the Gaza health ministry death toll was at 10,000 The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 07:22, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

In every war you'll get people arguing about everything and can believe two impossible things before breakfast. Probably some of the same people who taught their children the Israeli Friendship Song 2023 will be arguing that the IDF are the most moral army in the world and go to extreme lengths to protect civilians. I'd say not to worry too much about it and just follow Wikipedia's policies. NadVolum (talk) 11:32, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Potentially Misleading Chart?

There are a number of reasons to believe that the freeze in Gazan casualty figures stems from the following:

- A collapse of the health system; hospitals submit their casualty figures to a central database, however less than twelve out of the thirty-six hospitals are still operating, and even that is at partial functionality: https://www.rescue.org/article/collapse-gazas-health-system

- The siege upon two of Gaza's biggest hospitals (Al-Shifa and Nasser), which were critical nodes in aggregating Gazan casualties, has rendered both inoperable: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/destruction-gazas-shifa-hospital-rips-heart-out-health-system-who-says-2024-04-02/

- Rolling blackouts prevent the updating of Gazan casualties to a central database: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/03/1229402063/gaza-communications-cell-phone-internet-service-blackouts-paltel

- Rescue services, which unearthed the injured & corpses from rubble and transported them to hospitals for aid/counting have largely been dismantled by the destruction: https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234159514/gaza-death-toll-30000-palestinians-israel-hamas-war

In light of this, I personally feel that the chart which shows a diminishing rate of casualties paints a false image of the war becoming less severe, when the likely reality is that we simply are not getting new figures on casualties.

My proposal would be to convert the graph to a dotted line from March onwards (as the second assault on Al-Shifa and the assault on Nasser both occurred that month, and the casualty reporting visibly retarded going forward from those events) with an annotation below noting that the central hospitals which aggregated casualties were destroyed. Neurolimal (talk) 16:14, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand they are now getting more people to report injuries and deaths. And there is definitely no freeze, it is just going up less steeply than before. More importantly you have to provide definite evidence or peferably a citation saying it rather than conjecture. You may be right but what you have above is definitely WP:OR. NadVolum (talk) 17:18, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

• Support I agree with changing the chart as User:Nuerolimal suggests above. The war has reduced the medical infrastructure within the Gaza Strip to such a degree that the "deaths" count represented in this manner is misleading and possibly suggestive of a reduced casualty count or "lighter" war – when that is not the case. Detsom (talk) 06:10, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi User:NadVolum Wondering if you could you clarify "they are now getting more people to report injuries and deaths"? I'm not quite sure what you mean. Also I don't see WP:OR as you are claiming, so wondering if you could clarify that was well. They provided WP:RS and newer news certainly bolsters the suggestion from User:Nerolimal.

It's fairly well known that the Gaza Health Ministry was only recording casualties that arrived to hospitals or morgues. A quote from Associated Press:

"Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every dead body arriving at a morgue. They enter this data into a computerized system shared with al-Qidra and colleagues. According to screenshots hospital directors sent to AP, the system looks like a color-coded spreadsheet divided into categories: name, ID number, date of hospital entry, type of injury, condition."

Additionally, here's an article published 8 days ago from a newspaper of record, The Wall Street Journal, titled In Gaza, Authorities Lose Count of the Dead. This article clearly demonstrates the collapse of the Gaza Health Ministry, and supports User:Neurolimal's recommendation of changing the chart to better reflect the situation on the ground. Here's a quote from WSJ:

"Gaza’s Palestinian health authorities say they can no longer count all their dead. Hospitals, emergency services and communications are barely functioning. Extracting bodies from the vast number of collapsed buildings is a gargantuan task and not a priority while the war continues." Detsom (talk) 06:34, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

For a while now they have included numbers of dead from journalists and first reponders plus forms and web link from people to identify people to put in details of people they know are dead. I read that those identified by a form are taken away from the count of unidentified ones, I guess to err on the low side but the whole business must be a mess. And yes thousands would be lost under rubble and there wouldn't even be much of a media count from the north. There's a big article about all this in [2] and I might have got bits wrong. NadVolum (talk) 14:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Minor edit request - Regarding airstrikes and food infrastructure

"Airstrikes have destroyed food infrastructure, such as bakeries, mills, and food stores, and there is a widespread scarcity of essential supplies due to the blockade of aid." I believe that while airstrikes have been the main source of bombardment, the on the ground fighting has involved "battlefield shaping" where buildings are demolished, and specialized bulldozers during combat. I checked the sources and they didn't attribute to airstrikes the cause of the devastation, if someone could find a source for the claim that airstrikes were the cause that would be much appreciated. I suspect this claim relates to devastation of food infrastructure in inhabited areas, if one cannot be found can this be tagged with citation needed? or if that's too inflammatory for some reason otherwise noted that the sources don't vindicate this claim.

I don't think there is any rush.

Thank you 163.53.144.63 (talk) 13:15, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Most of the destruction of buildings has been by bombs, you can't just drive a bulldozer into a building without worry. A number of buildings like universities and suchlike have been specially targetted by sappers but that is only a small portion of the total. See for example [3], it talks about the bombing/ Where the bulldozers have been used to cause damage is in the fields outside as described in [4]. I'm not sure if that answers your question as I'm not exactly sure what the question is or what the shaping is supposed to be about. NadVolum (talk) 14:03, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

False claim about ICJ ruling in article

The President of the ICJ clarified that the court found Gazans had a "plausible right to be protected from Genocide," and did not rule on the plausibility that genocide is occurring. https://www.timesofisrael.com/plausibility-in-the-south-african-genocide-case-against-israel-is-not-what-it-seemed/ 47.208.110.136 (talk) 18:22, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Well I tried to put that in but as convoluted judgespeak who knows, I could have easily got it wrong! NadVolum (talk) 19:05, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Two proposed changes -- header and death toll section

70% Women/Children Claim

This sentence of the header -- "The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: over 34,262 have been killed, 70% of them are women and minors" should be revised in light of the available information.

The Gaza Health Ministry no longer makes the claim that 70% of those killed are women in children in its Health Sector Emergency reports, and has not since March 23. [1] Only the Government Media Office (GMO) continues to make that claim, and the Health Ministry has not offered an explanation of the discrepancy [2] and declined to defend the GMO figures in response to queries from Sky News in early April. [3]

Moreover, the available Health Ministry data has not supported the 70% claim at any point since they first began publishing Health Sector Emergency reports on December 11. [4] Moreover, an MOH report on 5/2 (covering data up to 4/30) indicated that the death toll included 10,006 adult men, 4,959 adult women, 7,797 children, and 1,924 elderly, along with 9,936 reported fatalities coming from media reports (which the Health Ministry renamed as incomplete entries at the start of April, but which Health Sector reports still identify as media reports). 40.5% of fatalities for which there is information are adult men (18-59), 20.1% are adult women (18-59), 31.6% are children (0-17), and 7.8% are elderly, meaning that the maximum percentage of women and children (if it is assumed that all elderly deaths are women), is 59.5%, more likely between 55% and 56% assuming an even split between elderly men and women. [5] UN-OCHA, as of May 8, has listed these figures in their Reported Impact statements as well. [6]

These figures demonstrate that the GMO claims about the number of women and children killed are impossible. On May 8, the GMO claimed that out of 34,844 total deaths, 15,002 were children and 9,892 were women (combined, this would be 71.4% of the total). [7] That would imply a maximum of 9,949 men killed, 57 fewer than the number of men (18-59) the Health Ministry reported alone, not considering any deaths attributed to media reports.

It is worth pointing out that multiple analysts have published work indicating the 70% figure was implausible since early this year, based on the available data. [8]

Given that the Health Ministry does not make the 70% claim anymore and its own data indicates that it is impossible, this sentence should be changed to reflect that fact. A proposed revision would read (changing casualties specifically to "identified dead" because casualties means both those killed and injured, and a majority of those reported injured are adult men, according to the Health Ministry, and because we do not know the demographic breakdown of the fatalities attributed to media reports):

"The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: over 34,262 have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, a majority of the identified dead are women and minors."

It would be worth updating the sidebar pie chart from Prof. Spagat and Silverman's November analysis with the new Health Ministry figures, citing them directly -- as it stands, the chart is 6 months out of date.

The OCHA changed their claim about the numbers of woman and child casualties to about half of the previous claims (more than 9500 women to 4959 and more than 14500 children to 7797) between their updated the 6 of May and 8 of May .

Mistaken Attribution of GMO figures

A separate issue apparent throughout the article: figures are attributed to the Health Ministry which come from the GMO. This applies to the following sentences:

1. "As of 29 February, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 30,000 Palestinians (including over 10,000 minors) have been killed, over 70,000 injured, and 10,000 are missing under rubble, totaling over 110,000 casualties since the war began, which is about 5% of Gaza's 2.3 million population." The way this sentence is currently written attributes all figures to the Health Ministry, which is incorrect for the number of minors killed and number missing or under the rubble. It should be rewritten to accurately convey who is claiming what.
2. "The casualties and damages of the conflict in Gaza up to the 175th day are outlined as follows: Women and children make up 73% of the total victims of the war. There have been 14,350 child casualties. Additionally, 9,460 women have lost their lives." This both cites the GMO figures and does it from a state-run Iranian news agency -- it should be replaced with the updated MOH figures, and the article should group the demographic breakdown of the death toll into one place and keep it consistent.
3. "On 29 February 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that 44% (i.e. over 13,000) of the fatalities were children." The Ministry of Health did not claim this on February 29, nor does the cited NPR article indicate that. The relevant sentences: "Gaza's health ministry says 70% of those killed in the territory are women and children. Its most recent breakdown of casualties recorded in hospitals shows women and children make up 58% of those deaths. Al-Qudra could not explain the discrepancy." [2] The GMO, however, did claim on February 29 that 13,230 children had been killed. [9] This should either be properly cited/attributed to the GMO, preferably using the primary source, or it should be deleted given the demonstrated unreliability of GMO figures.

Mis-dated developments

Additionally, the dates given for several developments in the "Death Toll" section are incorrect. The Health Ministry began using media reports in early November, while the article as it stands implies this happened at the end of February. At least one analyst believes the practice began as early as November 3. [10] In any case, the Health Ministry reported over 4,000 deaths from media reports by December 11, so the practice at least began before then.

The Google Form is listed as having started in March 2024. However, it was first published on January 6 and circulated on official government channels. [11] This should be corrected.

[1] Compare the language in the 3/23 and 3/27 MOH reports (page 2) -- shifts from claiming over 70% to claiming a simple majority. By the 4/1 report, there are no claims about overall demographic breakdowns at all. See Telegram (https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5224 (3/23) https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5237 (3/27), and https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5258 (4/1)) or this archive: https://archive.org/details/moh-gaza-health-sector-emergency-reports/.

[2] https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234159514/gaza-death-toll-30000-palestinians-israel-hamas-war

[3] "Until recently, however, the ministry had been reporting a figure of 72%. Mr al Wahaidi told Sky News that this was a "media estimate". He was not able to explain the basis for this estimate or who had produced it. Since speaking to Sky News, he has stopped using this figure in his reports for the health ministry. It continues to be used by the government media office, a separate branch of Gaza's government." https://news.sky.com/story/amp/israel-hamas-war-health-system-collapse-in-gaza-leaves-authorities-struggling-to-count-the-dead-13107279

[4] Per the 12/11 report, adult men made up 39.1% (5,577/14,269) of deaths recorded in the hospital system. No demographic breakdown was given, or has been given at any point, of the reported fatalities attributed to media sources. https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4576.

[5] Report here: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5397. Later infographic here: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5419.

[6] https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215.

[7] https://t.me/mediagovps/2854.

[8] See Prof. Michael Spagat: https://aoav.org.uk/2024/analysis-of-new-death-data-from-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns/. There are also two reports from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (I understand this is not a preferred source for many, but they are clear about only utilizing MOH data for these analyses and dovetail with Spagat's analysis on the 70% point): https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-hamas-manipulates-gaza-fatality-numbers-examining-male-undercount-and-other and https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable.

[9] https://t.me/mediagovps/2442.

[10] https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable

[11] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4718. ExVivoExSitu (talk) 17:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

THis article comes under WP:ARBECR and this is your first edit to Wikipedia. The essay above is not in a form I can construe as anything like two straightforward edits. NadVolum (talk) 18:15, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Why do wikipedia editors here seem to prirortize some sort of kafkesque bureaucracy over correcting the misinformation in this article and seeking the facts? 2A02:14F:17A:47BE:6961:A0F1:27A6:8A12 (talk) 19:14, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

See WP:Contentious topics and WP:Contentious topics/Arab–Israeli conflict, this is considered a contentious area and the restrictions are to stop the talk pages being turned into shouting matches of random people who have no experience editing Wikipedia. I have already been told off by an admin for responding to a query like this one. NadVolum (talk) 23:42, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 April 2024. Adding sources proving manipulation of the casualty numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry to fix the long due lack of neutrality of this article.

CHANGE:

As of 8 April 2024, over 34,000 people (33,091 Palestinian[1] and 1,410 Israeli[9]) have been reported as killed in the Israel–Hamas war, including 95 journalists (90 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese)[10] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, including 179 employees of UNRWA.[11]

The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: over 33,091 have been killed, 70% of them are women and minors.[12] In December 2023, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated 90% of the casualties were civilians,[13][14] while the IDF put the civilian ratio at 66% of those killed.[15] The death toll comes from the Gaza Health Ministry and the total death toll in Gaza is presumed to be higher than reported,[16][17] with thousands remaining unaccounted for, including those trapped under rubble.[12][18]

TO:

As of 8 April 2024, over 34,000 people (33,091 Palestinian[1] and 1,410 Israeli[9]) have been reported as killed in the Israel–Hamas war by the Gaza Health Ministry, including 95 journalists (90 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese)[10] and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, including 179 employees of UNRWA. The vast majority of reported casualties have been in the Gaza Strip. [11][12]. In December 2023, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated 90% of the casualties were civilians,[13][14] while the IDF put the civilian ratio at 66% of those killed.[15] The death toll comes from the Gaza Health Ministry and the total death toll in Gaza is presumed to be higher than reported,[16][17] with thousands remaining unaccounted for, including those trapped under rubble.[12][18]

These figures have been though repetitely challenged and found incoherent and untrustworthy by multiple sources, partly because of the control that Hamas has on the Gaza Health Ministry. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy released in Jan. 2024 an analysis of the data which stated, among other things, that the claim that 72% of the dead are women and children is false and the data were manipulated to exaggerate the proportion of civilian casualties. Professor Abraham Wyner published a statistical study on the anomalies of the provided figures from the Gaza Ministy of Health, underlining an excessively regular progression in the reported casualties and a lack of correlation between the number of women and children victims, concluding that "the numbers are not real". President Biden himself claimed that he has "no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using."

ADD UNDER "Reactions and analysis" title:

The data offered by the Gaza Health Ministry have been often questioned by multiple sources and found incoherent.

The validity of the data reported by the Ministry of Health is firstly questioned because of its ties with Hamas, which makes it remarkably not neutral. Hamas appointed its own health minister after it took control of Gaza in 2007, separating the ministry from the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank (which is controlled by the Palestinian Authority) and firing the doctors linked to Fatah. “After I was dismissed they threatened to kill me, to shoot me, if I entered the hospital again”, said Jomaa Alsaqqa, former deputy director of Shifa Hospital. "About 600 doctors were fired or pushed out of their jobs."

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a report at the end of January 2024 that attempted to show some of the discrepancies in the official fatality report's figures, and states that "The repeated claim that 72% of the dead are women and children is very likely incorrect" and that the data were manipulated "to downplay the number of militants killed and to exaggerate the proportion of noncombatants confirmed as dead". It also claims that the war has decreased in intensity.

In March 2024 Abraham Wyner, professor of statistics and data science of Wharton, published a piece on Tablet Magazine after analyzing the numbers of casualties reported by the Ministry of Health in Gaza and denounced an "extremely regular increase in casualties over the period" and the fact that "the daily number of children reported to have been killed is totally unrelated to the number of women reported", rather than closely tied as it happens in war scenarios. The analysis would suggests that "the numbers are not real" and were instead fabricated by the Palestinian Authority.

The Gaza Ministry of Health also admitted that the figures the media treat as authoritative rely in part on reporting from the media. The ministry says that the reported casualties include not only those counted in the hospitals but also those reported by "reliable media sources". In its March 31 report, the ministry attributes 15,070 of the dead, or 45.9%, to news reports of unspecified origin but that likely include the Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa channel and Al-Jazeera, which has always mantained an hostile attitude toward Israel since the start of the war and denies the 07 Oct. massacre. Alves Stargazer (talk) 20:02, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Wyner's 'study' is badly manipulated statistics using his reputation for propaganda, that's why no reliable non-Israeli place uses them, see [5]. The The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is another of these endless Israeli propaganda sources in the US and the stuff in that is slanted and misses out a lot, it should at least be described as that rather than giving the impression it is independent. They Ministry do ask for details of all the deaths reported and try and get id numbers and names etc but there are very few people doing the statistics.

So a no from me for a straight insertion. Yes the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimate of 90% is almost certainly too high. The IDF figure of 66% is total rubbish. The only guesstimate I've seen from any actual reliable source so far is as much as perhaps 80% but really nobody knows. And I'm pretty certain the Health Ministry is recording less than two thirds of the actual deaths even with its web forms. NadVolum (talk) 21:46, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Lior Patcher from [6] only contests the first plot in Wyner's study, the regular progression; he finds no fault nor explanation to the others analyzed anomalies (no correlation between women and children deaths, negative correlation between men and women, resurrections among men), as himself clarified in the comments.

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy may be indeed not neutral but this whole page is not neutral as of now. Every figure used in this page, even those reported by prestigious newspapers as the NYT, can be traced back to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is not just Hamas-Controlled and therefore partial (see [7][8]) but also admitted of using media reports as sources for half of the reported deaths, likely anti-Israelian media [9]. So either we add some contradictory or we need to erase the whole page and wait ten years before making a chronicle out of it because at this point it's misinformation.

Also, what does it mean that "the IDF figure of 66% is total rubbish"? Was that your personal opinion? If Israel and the IDF offer their numbers (which btw include the deceased terrorists, which should be added at a certain point in this page) we should just report them specifying the source.

That said, what do you think it should be edited to make it a suitable insertion? Alves Stargazer (talk) 11:17, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Other people contributed to the Lior Patcher thread. He was very dismissive of Wyner's study. If you read further on a probable explanation of the anti-correlation you talk about is that they batched the checking so they did children, men and women separately rather than trying to deal with each as they came in and it took about two days for a turnaround. It says there were only four people checking the data from the various sources. As to the 66% please see [10], the 66% is probably a rounded version of 61% from an Israeli University study which counted all adult men as possible combatants - a fairly common thing in these studies but unfortunately one which is easy to misunderstand. Since men form nearly a quaer of the population and Hamas is a small minority one should add another third to that to get 81% civilians. That could vary as many militants aren't counted as they are buried under rubble, on the other hand civilian men are killed disproporionately in wars. Anyway I hope you can see the 66% is total rubbish. Of course Wikipedia will cite total rubbish especially in an article like this where there are no well determined and solid facts so possibly some of what you say could go in but if you are believing that the deaths are lower than what the Health Ministry says or the figure is 2:1 civilians to militants and this is a marvellous achievement you are sadly mistaken. NadVolum (talk) 13:13, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I am less interested in believing and more in keeping the article neutral, since at this point it's mostly Hamas propaganda. Every Israelian-related source is specified, yet every Hamas tie is omitted from Hamas-tied sources and expressed as objective truth. The lack of transparency is going to led people unwilling to dig through link chains to believe that these numbers are factual, rather than coming from not-neutral sources. Generally speaking, though, I'm not really prone to give a lot of credibility to an internationally recognized terrorist organization.

At the very least I'd start changing the first paragraph with something more transparent. Let's say, we could replace: "The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: over 33,091 have been killed, 70% of them are women and minors. In December 2023, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor estimated 90% of the casualties were civilians, while the IDF put the civilian ratio at 66% of those killed."

with: "The vast majority of casualties have been in the Gaza Strip: according to the Hamas-controlled[11] Gaza Health Ministry, over 33,091 Palestinians have been killed and 70% of them are women and minors, with no distinction between fighters and civilians. In December 2023, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, which was listed by Israel among Hamas' main operatives and institutions in 2013[12], estimated 90% of the casualties were civilians, while the IDF put the civilian ratio at 66% of those killed. In March 2024, the IDF announced a total esteem of 13,000 Hamas members killed, in addition to the thousand already killed on 7th October. [13]"

I believe this should give a more balanced outlook on the situation. Alves Stargazer (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not engage in WP:FALSEBALANCE. The IDF figures it gives to the public are all over the place [14]. Internally they use the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry [15]. That the state is terrorist or democratic has very little relation to whether data like this is reliable. NadVolum (talk) 19:20, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Mekomit [16] that you linked is part of the +972 Magazine which opposes Israelian occupation of Palestine and it's fringe activism journalism, no where near to claim that Israel uses the Health Ministry figures internally. IDF figures, Wyner's studies and the Washington Institute were all reported by large US newspapers and they are therefore relevant as per Wikipedia:BESTSOURCES. You just can't consider it a fringe theory if WSJ and Washington Post report it, especially since there is no difference with the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry figures that were reported in the already linked NBC, CNN and NYT articles;

Lyor Patcher's objections and even worse the comments below the blog, instead, come from an unknown blog which is frankly impossible to consider reliable, as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources and undue weight. Which brings us back to the point that this page gives undue weight to Hamas and pro-Palestinian sources with no balance altogether.

Let's further add that the Gaza Health Ministry numbers were only considered accurate for the period from Oct. 7 to 26, as per [17], which is the same source on the relative wiki page, and the mention that the WHO considered it relieble in [18] needs to be dated to the initial phase of the war. This does not keep into account the collapse of the Ministry of Health in November 2023 nor the fact that since then they admitted taking half of their figures from the media, not even the echo chamber among all the Hamas-influenced media.

I'd also like to point out that you had no issue when someone edited the article adding obviously all-over-the-place data, like the 90% from the Hamas-controlled Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, yet it suddenly became an issue for you the moment the added data attacked Hamas. I therefore have to ask to please stop gatekeeping; the data I intend to add has no lower quality of what is already included in the article. Alves Stargazer (talk) 17:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I didn't object to the IDF figure of 66% being stuck in the lead either. It was reported by reliable sources and like the Euro-Med figure of 90% it is attributed to them. What I do object to is bad sources being used in such a blatant manner to discredit the Ministry of Health in the lead. All the Washington Institute shows is that the figures have some problems and errors, they do not show anything like what you state. One would need to ignore all the missing under the rubble and count nearly all the men as being Hamas militants to get anywhere like what you said or start saying the figures reported in the hospitals are much too high even though only three are still operating to some extent. Professor Wyner's article is rubbish and it is propaganda, there just is no two ways around it. Anyone with an ounce of training in statistics or even maths can figure that out. And it hasn't been reported in a reliable source. I am happy for it to be stuck somewhere lower down with the rest of the propaganda trying to push figures but putting it in the lead is just wrong. As to going on about an Israeli media group being anti-Israel and making thing up about the IDF I am put in mind of the Anti-Defamation League calling Jews antisemitic. NadVolum (talk) 17:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, but apparently someone vandalized this talk page removing my answer. So:

The Ministry of Health and the Euro-Med are still not reported as Hamas-controlled, which makes those data really opaque on the side they're on. This needs to change ASAP. And the Euro-Med monitor should have never been mentioned at all, since it's an echo chamber for the radical Islamic world which is conceptually speaking as bad as a fallacious statistical study; and since Wyner's had an entire article from the Washington Post talking about it they are really on the same degree of relevance.

In general terms the figures from the Ministry look fishy as hell. Last week Al-Jazeera reported two Israelian bombings with 22 and 20 dead, with 18 and 17 children dead respectively (the rest women) which makes just no sense unless the IDF is purposedly targeting kindergartens; which again makes no sense for a democratic country and they're likely made up. Since the Ministry admitted they've been using media data in their figures, just imagine how many of these fake reports have puffed the civilian casualties; but we don't don't have to imagine because that's exactly what the Washington Institute is talking about - they're making up women and children casualties to influence international opinion.

The idea that most dead men are Hamas makes actually sense, because if the IDF strikes somewhere it's likely an Hamas base and the involved civilians are going to be the wives and children of said members, which are known to live around their husbands/fathers so they can be martyrs together. The IDF has also de-escalated the war since December, the idea of them still making thousands of random dead is absurd. About the +972 Magazine it is what it is, even the wiki page calls them left-winged and pro-Palestine; and since they leave complete freedom to their writers it really doesn't take much to write anti-Israelian articles, especially with two Palestinian journalist in their rooster. I am in no condition to evaluate what they say because I can't read Hebrew but I can recognize they're politically aligned in this.

Anyway, I'd like to get to some point with this argument. Can we agree on some sources and edits or should I just ask to flag the page as non-neutral? Alves Stargazer (talk) 01:46, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Unclear what "tactics" refers to

In the Civilians section: "The high number of casualties is due to Israeli tactics and large-scale bombing, which in some cases has left entire towns completely destroyed and uninhabitable."

What are the "tactics" that, in addition to the large-scale bombing, have caused the high number of casualties? I am not disputing the validity of the sentence, I'm simply asking for clarity. - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 12:50, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Good question. The citations don't seem to support it. How about The Guardian's https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/08/israeli-soldiers-idf-gaza-fighting-disaster-area ? NadVolum (talk) 15:33, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

This NYT piece also has a lot: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/25/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-death-toll.html BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

October 7th Israeli deaths revised number and citation

The article sat 1,139 deaths with no citation. That source appears to be https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social-security-data-reveals-true-picture-of-oct-7-deaths

However in February AFP revised this to 1,163 - see this Barron's article attributed to AFP: https://www.barrons.com/news/new-tally-puts-october-7-attack-dead-in-israel-at-1-163-78182279 Moschops42 (talk) 17:57, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Age of adults

I’ve seen pro-Israel social media accounts claiming the Gaza MoH and UN figures for “adults” and “children” designate 19 year olds children (thus making some child fatalities plausible combatants). This seems unlikely to me, but is there a source confirming age counted as “child” and “adult” in that data that we can add to article? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:29, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

They consider 19 year olds are adults and 18 year old are children. This is specified in both the Palestinian and UN sources. Just stick 'palestinian age of children' into Google and see for yourself. The Fourth Geneva Convention has special clauses for children under fifteen and eighteen years old. However Israel considers Palestinian and Israeli children differently, Israeli children are those under 18 and Palestinian children are those under 16, see Convention on the Rights of the Child. NadVolum (talk) 16:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

The Gaza MOH classes children as 0-18, based on their publications. It can be unclear, since they have often put out infographics which say "under 18" for children and "above 18" for adults (see [1] as a representative example from October), which doesn't clarify where they class 18-year-olds. However, in lists of names they released for children [2] and women [3] covering 10/7-4/30, you can see that the list for children includes 18-year olds while the list for women doesn't have anyone below 19.

Because the UN is only republishing MOH figures, they are also classifying 0-18 as children and 19+ as adults. That differs from the Convention on the Rights of the Child (where children are under 18 or lower, depending on age of majority in State Party), but since the UN is only republishing MOH figures and not doing their own recategorization/analysis, it tracks to me.

When talking about child combatants, children in their mid-teens could of course be combatants. Child soldiers in other conflicts have been under 10 in some cases (like DRC). But that's irrelevant to the fact that they are children, and the MOH does not distinguish civilians and combatants anyway.

@NadVolum I don't see any reservation to that effect on Israel's treaty page with OHCHR, where their signatory/ratification status with human rights instruments are listed. The only reservations are on the CRC Optional Protocol on children in armed conflict, and they have to do with Israelis 17-18 registering for the military and what they are/aren't allowed to do. Where do you see a stipulation about Palestinians 16-17 being considered adults in the documentation?

[1] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4096

[2] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5407

[3] https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5409 ExVivoExSitu (talk) 22:21, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Sorry yes, protected persons under the conventions include children of 0..17 years old, referred to as under 18 with majority to adults when they become 18. From those references it is obvious Hamas are also including 18 year olds as children, maybe they misunderstood what was required? Anyway 19 year olds are adults according to any definition which is what the post was about. Thankfully they don't use the Korean system for ages!

I had a quick look again at the business of childrens ages as far as Israel is concerned and the complaints about that I found were twelve years old or older with nothing since which is long enough ago that I'm happy to presume they have chosen to fix that business. NadVolum (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Error within Gaza Strip - Civilians Section

The last paragraph of this section states that "As of June 13, the UN reported that..." The article being referred to was released of May 13th, not June 13th. This is simply a minor error that can be quickly corrected. 174.198.7.192 (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Pie chart errors

The pie chart incorrectly labels the categories as children under 15, men and boys above 14, women and girls above 14, and elderly. As discussed elsewhere on this talk page, the proper categories in accordance with MOH policy are children (0-18), adult men (19-59), adult women (19-59), and elderly (60+). The labels of the chart should be updated to reflect the correct categories.

The date for the data also needs to be set to April 30, 2024 -- if it makes everything gel better, a direct link to the OCHA report on May 8 might be better than the Reuters wire report. https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-215 ExVivoExSitu (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

"killed" vs "died"

As far as I can tell, the ubiquitous Ministry of Health numbers are reported to count all deaths recorded in Gazan hospitals, regardless of cause of death. If that's true, I don't think the word "killed" is appropriate when citing those numbers. On the other hand, sources tend to use that word uncritically. Probably because the MoH uses it? If some other body creates estimates based on those numbers, "killed" might be appropriate. Ornilnas (talk) 21:53, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

On the other other hand, when people die, something, the cause, killed them. That something might by a bomb or sepsis or dehydration etc., but in any case, it killed them. This kind of argument doesn't only apply to MoH data, it applies to any instance of the word 'killed' in the article doesn't it, and there are almost 200 instances surrounded by a wide variety of words that hopefully reflect the language of the sources sampled. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

In most instances, it's worded as something like "killed by the war". If it's worded "killed during the war", I guess you could argue it's technically correct, but super weird and misleading wording. Ornilnas (talk) 06:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Another way of looking at it is that in order to be misleading something needs to be leading. The word killed is not intrinsically leading, it's just a statement of fact. Thinking something is 'misleading' may also indicate that a person has added information to a set of words by 'reading between the lines' and making assumptions about implied cause/blame etc., despite there being nothing between the lines. The thing that concerns me in situation like this is that assessments like sources 'tend to use that word uncritically' can be premised on the notion that editors can do better than sources when there is incomplete information. I hope, but have no idea whether it is the case, that those 200ish instances reflect the language of the sources, more or less, including the presence or absence of information about cause. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other. I'm saying the word "died" would be much more accurate than "killed", if my understanding of the number collection is correct. I agree that most sources use the word "killed", which limits our options. But it both degrades the quality of the article, and causes contradictions within it. Preferably, we would get a good and reliable source which clearly describes what the numbers actually mean, which we could then use to update the language in the article. Or, if we had separate estimates (based on the MoH numbers or not), we could use those instead. Ornilnas (talk) 07:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect date: June 13 should be May 13

"As of June 13, the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities."

It's still May, and the date on the article reads 05-13 Sturmundsonne (talk) 10:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay fixed that thanks. NadVolum (talk) 12:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Request for comment on data which is known to be false on casualty figures still on wikipedia page

Most of the information about casualties is still based on the old Hamas numbers yet the UN have published revised numbers. Yet people keep removing the new numbers from UN and putting back the info from the old numbers as if they were fact.Patrick.N.L (talk) 16:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The UN did not publish new numbers, they have a subset of fully identified deaths and those missing one or more fields in the tracked data. You also have no brief neutral question for an RFC here. ScottishFinnishRadish want to do something about this? Since my doing something would be frowned upon. See also #Revised casualties. nableezy - 17:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

De-RFC'd, thanks for the heads up. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The UN did publish new numbers, the total casualties haven't changed but the division between men women and children has changed in a major way.

After investigations the UN halved the amounts of kids and women killed which were grossly overstated. But then authors keep reverting edits to put the grossly inaccurate numbers and keeping numbers from sources that used Hamas reports instead.

Putting information based on false data should not appear or should be clearly stated the casualty data for women and children were doubled. Patrick.N.L (talk) 22:22, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That is absolutely false. All parts of it. The UN published numbers for fully identified bodies, and further said the total number of dead has not changed, only that a number of the dead do not have complete records. CNN: UN says total number of deaths in Gaza remains unchanged after controversy over revised data:The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.

According to Haq, the ministry published a breakdown for 24,686 fully identified deaths out of the total 34,622 fatalities recorded in Gaza as of April 30. The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.

The propaganda that you are pushing here had been directly refuted by the place you are claiming supports it. nableezy - 22:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

They are not false casualty figures. The new figures shown are the number of casualties who have been fully identified. It is mostly but not fully a subset of the recorded deaths and the OCHA prefers using them, it does not say the other figures are false. This is something that needs resoluton okay but to describe what is happening properly using reliable sources and it is a bit complicated. NadVolum (talk) 17:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

(invited by the bot) As noted, there is no specific question here. Being a current event, with lots of sources, spin, bias etc. I think it would be put attribution (and avoid stating as fact in the voice of Wikipedia) and background with any numbers. Including "where did number come from?" Did that state the criteria and particulars? Who controls the entity that issued the number? And do put in numbers in places where that attribution and background can't be included. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a specific question but i am new to this. Shouldn't we remove any casualty data known to be false following united nations accurate investigations or put a disclaimer that the casualties for children and women is actually half of what was previously reported.

The problem is that historically credible sources used data which is now known to be false. After identifying 80% of bodies, the UN realized they doubled the amount of kids and women casualties by taking hamas reports. There is no debate on what's proven or not. The previous data was false regarding the division between women, men and children, even if they came from what is usually credible sources.

Yes there are still 20% bodies still to be identified but they should match the same distribution as the known sample which is around 35 000. Even if 10k out of 45k is still unidentified, that wouldn't double the casualties of children and women.

Any mention of casualties from Hamas prior to the un investigation should be have a disclaimer that the casualties for children and women are actually half of what Hamas reported.

It's simply a matter of prudence. We should not put data which is confirmed to be gross misinformation. Patrick.N.L (talk) 22:37, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The claim that any of this is "known to be false" is completely made up. The rest of the above comment continues along that same path. The UN did not identify any bodies, they are using the records from the Gazan Ministry of Health. You are making things up here, and are edit warring on the basis of that fantasy. nableezy - 22:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Plus extrapolating from the number of identified men is rather fraught as they say that the forms system is used a lot by women to identify their dead husbands so they can receive assistance from the state. On the other hand many of the men may have been taken away by Israel or buried under rubble so may be a larger percentage among the missing. We should wait for some reasonably independent source with some expertise or better figures from the health ministry. I view the recorded deaths including media sources as probably a better source but still think it probably underestimates the children killed. NadVolum (talk) 19:37, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Some cleanup: missing men, MOH/GMO mixups, registration, relative reports

1. This sentence excludes the MOH-stated total for the number of men killed: "As of May 13, 2024 the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities." It should be revised to the following: "As of May 13, 2024 the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 10,006 men, 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities." Citation: The Reuters article already cited includes this information.
2. This sentence miscites the MOH while using GMO figures (which should not be used since they conflict with MOH figures and the GMO does not have the capacity/authority to collect casualty data): "On 29 February 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that 44% (i.e. over 13,000) of the fatalities were children.[47]" It should be removed, and replaced by the following (or some form of it): "On 3 May 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that of 24,691 of those killed who are fully or partially identified, 31.6% (7,798) are children. The Gaza Ministry of Health defines children as those between 0 and 18, distinct from the UN definition, which includes those 0-17." Citation: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5401
3. This passage is untrue during wartime: "Every death registered in Gaza is the result of a verified change in the population registry approved by the Government of Israel.[106] The Israeli government notes that its "Population Registry Office works to update population registry files located on the Israeli side to match the files that are held" in the West Bank and Gaza.[107]" It should be modified to "In peacetime, Every death registered...".
4. This sentence remains incorrect, since the Google Form was launched in January and not March: "In March 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry requested that civilians register their dead online, as the healthcare system collapse had resulted in the ministry being unable to maintain a regularly updated death toll.[113]" It should be modified to "In January 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry requested that civilians register their dead online, as the healthcare system collapse had resulted in the ministry being unable to maintain a regularly updated death toll." Citation: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4718

ExVivoExSitu (talk) 20:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Possibly #1 can be corrected. I don't see how #2 would be citable here. For #3, we cannot synthesize a new fact if that isn't already in the cited source. For #4 you are suggesting changing only the date of the Gaza Health Ministry's request, right? Based on a Telegram post? ~Anachronist (talk) 23:21, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

#1 is about civilians and men are counted as potential militants.

#2 No misciting, All that has happened is that the UN now used confirmed identities. It has explicitly said that it is not disputing the other figures

#3 Have we a cite saying Israwel won't check the registry against the spreadsheets the ministry provides because it is wartime?

#4 It may be telegram which I dislike and I'd much prefer a better source but I'll stick it in. NadVolum (talk) 00:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

For #1 it is problematic to count all men as militants, to say the least. The Reuters article lists the entire demographic breakdown together: men, women, children, and elderly. Perhaps the location of the sentence is not ideal, but it does not make sense to only partially cite the demographics.

For #2 I provided the Health Ministry source for their most up-to-date demographics, since the GMO is not the actual relevant authority for casualty recording and its number can't be reconciled with the Health Ministry. However, you could use the same Reuters article as #1 for a source. Citing the 0-18 definition is a different challenge and would require another source, agreed.

For #3, can't the same question go in reverse? Why would the Health Ministry and Israeli government be communicating and exchanging death certificates during the war? All the given citations indicate is that there is such an arrangement in peacetime, and it is an assumption to state that things will work the same way during a war.

For #4, @Anachronist you're right, just changing the date the call was first put out. There is probably a Facebook post I could find from the same day, but I assume that is probably worse for longevity than Telegram, and Telegram is the primary mode of communication for the media office anyway. ExVivoExSitu (talk) 01:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

For #3, see WP:SYNTH. We can't include something the source doesn't say, and the source says nothing about peacetime or wartime, just that deaths are registered. For #4, I guess between Facebook and Telegram, Telegram is better, so we just hold our nose while including the Telegram citation. NadVolum has done that. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Understanding the casualty figures

There's been a lot of argument about the casualty figures. Something will have to be put in about them but unfortunately it is not straightforward. My understanding is

• The health ministry generates statistics on recorded deaths and identified deaths. The say they try to only include those who die as a direct result of the conflict not those due to things like disease or old age.
  • The missing are not included in the recorded deaths and is an estimation which doesn't seem to have a any methodology or expert doing it and is probably out of date.

    Israel have a policy of hiding dead militants so they can't be used as martyrs. This will make the count of deaths of men in particular rather difficult, but means the missing probably contains a higher proportion of men than the recorded.

  • The recorded deaths are from dead bodies at hospitals and from trusted media including first responders.

  There is unlikely to be much duplication between the hospitals and the media sources

  The hospitals have gone down in importance as only three of the hospitals that did recording for morgues are still in action compared to the original eight.

  • The identified are ones identified at the hospitals that do recording of deaths, or using forms filled in in a hospital, by one or the internet.

    The identified ones are not necessarily ones whose deaths have been recorded. They may be ones that are counted as missing

    Identifying a death counts towards the number of identified but does not affect the count of recorded deaths.

    The ministry say the major use is by wives who want support when their husband is dead.

    It could be useful to know if widows of militants need the GHM to record the death to get benefits.

    They say it also fulfills a purpose of closure by identifying the dead.

    Also said if a whole family is wiped out by a bomb they may not get to be identified.

    It might be possible to estimate the number of identified deaths which are for missing dead rater than recorded dead.

  • The ministry subtracts the count of identified from the number of recorded deaths and talk about that as the number still to be identified but some of the identified are among the missing. The missing should eventually be recorded so eventually they will be right. However adding the missing would be a better estimate of the number left to identify.
• Professor Abraham Wyner's analysis is deliberately twisted statistics. Fom an analysis I saw:

  The variation is far higher than one would expect on the most straightforward supposition rather than being too small like he asserted.

  One can get close to the variation if on average eleven out of twelve of the bombs killed nobody and the twelfth killed on average six people. This would be just recorded deaths.

  The anti correlation on different days between men an women killed can be explained by the ministry taking a day to process each category of deaths as a block.

• The fighting where the IDF encounters Hamas seems from what I've read seems to mostly involve the occasional Hamas suddenly popping up and shooting and then disappearing if they can. They also set booby traps.
• The demographics I believe is about 47% children, 25% men, 25% women, and 3% elderly.

  I would expect the number of civilian men casualties to be the same or higher as that of the women and for the children casualties to be almost twice that of women. However recording is pretty much of a mess.

  From a discussion above the GHM seem from their spreadsheet to use ages 0..18 inclusive for children rather than 0..17 which is what 'under 18' is supposed to mean in the Geneva Conventions. This is probably a mistake, I used the demographics of 0...14 and added a fifth for the 47% above which should approximate 0..17 fairly well.

  At the UN school in Nuseirat boys were sleeping in the mens room and girls in the womens room so there can be a difference in male and female children casualties.

Anyway that is my understanding of the figures at the moment. A lot would be hard to get proper reliable citations for in anything like the form I've given. As you can see various bits are rather hard to explain or will give strange results, but how much is really missing for this article? I'm sort of inclined to put any methodology in the Gaze Health Ministry article and just put any figures here with a pointer there. Bit of a cop out I'm afraid. NadVolum (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the methodology should indeed be in the Gaze Health Ministry article instead, with mainly a summary of that debate here.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Revised casualties

The UN citing the Gaza Ministry of Health has revised casualties. 1 2. The page will have to changed accordingly. - UtoD 04:43, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

It does state that 24,000 are identified. In the count it only includes the stats for the identified, while listing the total death toll including unidentified bodies (34,000). The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 07:04, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Fake news!!! Un has revised women and children deaths down 50pct 69.117.245.25 (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Those lower figures are the ones that have been fully identified. Which is a bit silly as they can't verify the figures and that's not what they'd use if they could verify them. A lot of men are identified on forms because the women need support if their husbands are killed. I think only three hospitals are able to do identification now. The Gaza Health Ministry is very conservative with its figures and the actual number of deaths will be much higher. NadVolum (talk) 00:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Added non factual tag until corrections are made.Patrick.N.L (talk) 23:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Any mention of casualty numbers provided by Hamas should be removed as non factual until confirmation by credible source. Moreover, hyperbolism about casualties should be avoided, and the use of new numbers should be done with prudence considering the amount of false information that has seeped into most major news outlet. https://www.yahoo.com/news/united-nations-cuts-estimates-women-170941270.html Patrick.N.L (talk) 23:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The total figure remains unchanged. This is probably the fullest report so far on the update in how UN reports: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with many of the edits by Patrick NL over the last hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas_war&diff=1223766173&oldid=1223751319 Several of the removed intances have not been refuted and are properly sourced, with claims attributed. I agree we shouldn’t use rolling news blogs and to be careful about attribution but these sweeping edits are excessive. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:58, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I am hopping over from the discussion section on the infobox page from the Israel-Hamas War article. This is meant as a helpful reply to everyone in this discussion post. There have been over 35,000 recorded Palestinian fatalities in the war so far. 24,686 of these have been identified and registered by hospitals and the Ministry of Health. The remaining are unregistered deaths from local media reports and fatalities with incomplete identification data. These are the facts. What numbers we use for the breakdown of each category of fatalities (men, women, children, elderly, etc.) is the question. The total numbers of fatalities for women (9,500) and children (14,500) the GMO uses would imply that all of those that are currently in the unidentified category are women and children if you do the math, which would be statistically highly unlikely, as the BBC, The Times Of Israel and other sources and users like @ExVivoExSitu have pointed out. If we are striving for accuracy, I think the most sensible thing is to include the most reliable data which are the identified fatality numbers for each category OR include both sets of fatality figures and make the distinction in the wiki article. Nathan1223 (talk) 10:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Ive reverted again, several highly tendentious additions were made, such as claiming false figures and that the estimates were cut in half. nableezy - 19:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The sources have a disproportionate number of children and women casualties have been refuted by the UN after its investigation. Previous estimates doubled the number of casualties for children and women.

The conflict is evolving and so must the numbers. Like @Nathan1223 requested, the facts should be put forward and not old numbers that have been refuted by a UN investigation. Patrick.N.L (talk) 19:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Again, no part of your claim that a disproportionate number of children and women casualties have been refuted by the UN after its investigation is true, and the UN has specifically said that is not true. nableezy - 21:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 May 2024

Please change "In December, Israel's military said it estimated 66% of those killed to be civilians.[56]" to "In December, Israel's military said it estimated two out of three (~66%) of those killed to be civilians. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus described this ratio as "tremendously positive".[56]"

Alone, the value 66% conceals the possibility that this is a rough estimate. What the IDF views as an acceptable or favorable civilian to military ratio is extremely pertinent to this subject.

Also, the link to Reference 56 is broken. I believe the intended reference is: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-military-civilian-ratio-killed-intl-hnk/index.html

Additionally: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-officials-2-civilian-deaths-for-every-1-hamas-fighter-killed-in-gaza/

I cannot find the original reference attributed to AFP. GammaDave (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I've replaced the broken link with the one you gave. I didn't put in how its figure was tremendously positive, it's disgusting enough the lie as it is. NadVolum (talk) 22:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Put in two thirds and second ref as well. NadVolum (talk) 08:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Gaza health ministry losing count/lagging

Should it be mentioned that the Gaza health ministry death toll is starting to slow down, and that it is still stuck at the mid 30 thousands mark for months despite consistent bombardment?

something like how it is very much an undercount given that due to the destruction of the healthcare system the GHM has basically stopped counting The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 04:23, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Have you got a reliable source? That's what's needed for things like that. Evene better if there is an analysis of why. Anything we did would otherwise just be WP:OR. NadVolum (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

There were many, especially old ones from November

this is the most recent I could find from last month

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/in-gaza-authorities-lose-count-of-the-dead-779ff694 The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 04:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

They get counts from the media and first responders too now. It looks fairly good to me though it isn't as definitive as previously, I'd guess there's less than twenty thousand missing uncounted, they gave an estimate of ten thousand early on. There's a whole lot of problems and evidence of that but you said about the slowing down of the killing. I believe that has happened and it is actual rather than just apparent because the system has broken down, have you a citation either way for that? NadVolum (talk) 11:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know if this is RS. It mentions Ralph Nader saying the death toll can be possibly as high as 200,000

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/05/31/you-cant-turn-back-the-clock-on-genocide-200000-deaths-in-gaza/ The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 07:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

The Gaza Health Ministry figures are for casualties due to the war, not disease famine old age or suchlike. There's probably some mixed in by mistake using media reports and responders but not much. Ralph Nader looks like he is including famine and disease from the war. Including those it still won't be anywhere like his figure yet, but the lack of food clean water and sanitation could rapidy turn the situation far worse. I feel sorry about those young Jews in America, they may be rejecting the ADL and Israel's ideas but they'll still be tarred by what is being done in their name. NadVolum (talk) 09:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll put a link to Gaza Strip famine under the famine section. NadVolum (talk) 09:32, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

• NadVolum, please read WP:NOTAFORUM. This is not the place for you to warn young American Jews or anyone else. Cullen328 (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

An appreciable amount of that article was about them, should it be cited without looking at it all? I was not warning anybody, I don't know where you get that idea from. There isn't very much they can do about it. NadVolum (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

@NadVolum the reporting on the civilians to militants ration is wrong, the Arabs channels of PA itself report that 14000 of the Alaqsa brigade are counted in the total death toll, also is never mentioned that PA speaks about martyrs and not civilians, that is a translation for the English public.

the resources in regards to the civilian to militant ration by the IDF are wrong as that is not an official statement due to counting and analysis. 2001:B07:6463:C039:9D19:A374:3FD7:F2D6 (talk) 10:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I douldn't figure out what you were trying to say. Also we can't respond to anything on this contentious topic until a person is registerd and has contributed 50 edits or so. You can request a specific edit, please provide a citation to support any change you want. NadVolum (talk) 12:01, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Missing information on some statement's real origin

Under Gaza Strip->Civilians, concerning the last paragraph: "As of 13 May 2024, the U.N. has reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 7,797 minors, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities. 52% of those killed are women and minors, and 40% are men; the U.N. does not differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths."

There is some information missing (check ref 42 for this, (https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-war-un-revises-death-toll-women-and-children , just in case the number changes).

The last part cites the UN numbers: "52% of those killed are women and minors, and 40% are men; the U.N. does not differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths."

However, the reference clearly states that the UN clearly relies on the Hamas-run health ministry's numbers, which is a much less trustworthy/legitimate source, considering their direct involvement in the conflict.

This is why I propose rewriting the aforementioned paragraph to something like "As of 13 May 2024, the U.N., relying on numbers published by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, has reported..." to make that clear. Teegrube (talk) 17:21, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the numbers the health ministry publishes are pretty reliable. They have been in the past, and even independent investigations have always come to more or less the same numbers as the Hamas-run agencies. (see: https://theweek.com/defence/how-trustworthy-are-the-gaza-health-ministrys-casualty-numbers, https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/how-reliable-are-gaza-health-ministry-s-death-numbers/7343831.html).

In my personal opinion, I think it is much more likely that the reported number of deaths is less than the actual casualties, especially when thinking about the destruction caused by Israeli attacks, which leads to many bodies not being found. 2A01:599:923:631C:ECEA:B292:5CC2:4CD3 (talk) 07:04, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:Israel–Hamas war#"Hamas-run. Sticking in 'Hamas-run' is a propaganda tactic to dehumanize the deaths of Palestinians and the attribution is totally unnecessary. NadVolum (talk) 08:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way we have to stick by the 52% because that comes from the best source. But actually the percentages for identified deaths are probably rather wild because people can send in identifications, and a major use for that is so widows can claim support if their husbands have died. I've clarified where it was mention that it refers to identified casualties but not said why that is important. NadVolum (talk) 08:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The 5% figure in the first sentence is misleading

"At least 5 per cent of the population in Gaza had been killed, severely injured or missing."

https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2024-05/2400257e-gaza_war-_expected_socioeconomic_impacts-pb.pdf

Is different from what is on the Wikipedia page: "at least 5% of Gaza's population has been killed, maimed or injured."

1. The source is being misquoted.

2. Missing figures should not be so prominent in a page about casualties. Undated (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

6,400 people missing for several months, a large percentage undoubtedly under the rubble, valiantly strutting through which the IDF troops complain of the stench, of dogs with arms between their teeth, birds pecking on legs sticking disjointedly out from under collapsed masses of concrete, of road-cleaning IDF bulldozers shovelling them up whenever press or Red Cross visitors are accompanied, to make sure that, dumped on the side under dust and debris, they won't be visible that day, potential eyesores that spoil the Potemkin neatness of the roads burrowing through the jungle of 37 million tons of a wrecked and ransacked world. We are talking about the unburied, who are, in any man's language, casualties.Nishidani (talk) 16:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Because the last missing number reports from PCD (10,000) and MOH (7,000) are now 3 months old, it's impossible to know how many are still missing versus already included in July killed/injured numbers. But the 5% figure is roughly accurate without including missing anyway, depending on the count and pre-war baseline used. Caution re: tone. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

186,000 dead, not may die

In the current article it says that 186,000 Palestinians may die according to the numbers in the Lancet. However, the text in the Lancet says that 186,000 may be dead, not that they may die in the future. Centurion Ernith (talk) 03:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's how it should be interpreted, see the preceding context: Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years [...].

The main discussion is here. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 05:53, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I've also opened a discussion at RSN: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:39, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Women-and-children narrative

I believe that, at least in those situations where sources indicate exactly how many women and how many children died, there is no point in lumping them together into the vague “women and children.” What does 52% women and children mean? 32% children and 20% women are both clearer and less benevolently-sexist. Reprarina (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

shortcomings in the reactions and analysis section

The UN analysis is not well represented, i think quotes like this would clarify their assessment of the situation: "The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group. "

"Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."

"Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure. For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group – demographically, culturally, economically and politically –, seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources."

source: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territory-occupied-since-1967-to-human-rights-council-advance-unedited-version-a-hrc-55/ 84.115.225.35 (talk) 20:36, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Please read 'WARNING: ACTIVE ARBITRATION REMEDIES' at the top of the page. You are only permitted to make a specific edit request for the article, please supply a citation if you do so. NadVolum (talk) 20:58, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure.

Current version:

Reactions and analysis

Both Israel and Hamas have been accused of committing war crimes. South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide in a case it brought before the International Court of Justice. In a set of preliminary rulings, the court found that the Palestinians rights under the genocide convention were plausibly in danger but did not rule on whether genocide was plausibly happening. In June 2024, a UN Commission of Inquiry found the scale of Israel's killing of Palestinians constituted a crime against humanity. Marwan Bishara, the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera English, argued that Israel's military campaign aimed to "eliminate anything that walks or breathes in Gaza".

Suggested extension:

Reactions and analysis

Both Israel and Hamas have been accused of committing war crimes.

South-Africa genocide case

South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide in a case it brought before the International Court of Justice. In a set of preliminary rulings, the court found that the Palestinians rights under the genocide convention were plausibly in danger but did not rule on whether genocide was plausibly happening.

UN Assessment

In June 2024, a UN Commission of Inquiry found the scale of Israel's killing of Palestinians constituted a crime against humanity. Marwan Bishara, the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera English, argued that Israel's military campaign aimed to "eliminate anything that walks or breathes in Gaza".

The UN report contains the following statements, outlining their analysis of the ongoing conflict:

"The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group. "

"Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by senior military and government officials."

"Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure. For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group – demographically, culturally, economically and politically –, seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources."

And somehow the link to https://www.un.org/unispal/document/anatomy-of-a-genocide-report-of-the-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territory-occupied-since-1967-to-human-rights-council-advance-unedited-version-a-hrc-55/ 84.115.225.35 (talk) 09:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

In light of these facts, it is entirely disingenuous to refer to this genocide as "the Israel-Hamas war." The International Court of Justice has ruled the state of Israel has failed to disprove "plausible intent to commit genocide" and ordered Israel immediately cease all attacks upon Gaza and the West Bank in January 2024, which they have not. (https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454) If the highest international court would call this a plausible genocide instead of a war, why does this article not reflect that? Vovbv (talk) 05:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Graph Update Request

UN OCHA casualties summary, as of 19 June 2024 , please update. Drsruli (talk) 03:29, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Auto-archiving period: 20 days

Please extend. Drsruli (talk) 03:29, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Use of media reports in death toll

This section is problematic:

As of 29 February, the Gaza Health Ministry stated that its daily tallies now rely upon "a combination of accurate death counts from hospitals that are still partially operating, and on estimates from media reports to assess deaths in the north of Gaza", but did not "cite or say which sources those are." On 31 March, it stated that 15,070 fatalities (45.8% of the then total) had been compiled via "reliable media sources" instead of direct reporting.

The quotation is not from the Gaza health ministry, but from an NPR article summarising their statements. The summary is incorrect - the health ministry never said it uses media reports. The ministry attributed a portion of the deaths to "المصادر الإعلامية الموثوقة". This has been translated as "reliable media sources" but in context can also mean the hospital's press team. This is in fact what the ministry has said - that these numbers are the result of body counts performed by the hospital's press officers. They have said very clearly that they do not do media monitoring.

https://news.sky.com/story/gaza-conflict-thousands-remain-unidentified-as-death-toll-reaches-40-000-13197287 Curevesi (talk) 21:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks very much. I'll add it to the Gaza Health Ministry article under methodology, it expands on what's there. There are a number of points which I think are unclear but it at least makes the area of uncertainty smaller. I think your interpretation has a problem in that the hospitas wouldn't have press teams able to do what you say. And they say they do not depend on any press sources. There are however first responders and ambulances that could be instructed to do as described in the article. Whether they also have another source is unclear to me from what is said. Perhaps it's deliberate - rather too many journalists have been killed to be complacent about who they are or what they do.. NadVolum (talk) 20:28, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Section Civilians

Section reads "According to public health experts, such as Devi Sridhar" cites an opinion piece in the Guardian, as though it is a scholarly source, but Sridhar's claim is supposition and itself is based on a letter to the editor in the Lancet. This letter to the editor has been cited as though it is a scholarly estimate and peer reviewed paper. It is in an opinion piece, and one for which the research is actually performed elsewhere, namely in this report from the UN ( https://www.refworld.org/reference/research/gds/2008/en/64390 ). This report looks at the ratio of direct to indirect casualties in recent wars, focusing on 13 wars. 10 of these wars are in Africa, all of them lasted between 1 and 30 years, but most were 5-10 years, and took place against the background of a further conflict and sanctions.

What's more, not only is the country biased toward Africa, but the countries with the lowest casualty ratio (Kosovo), had a life expectancy of 71 at the start of its conflict. The next two lowest Iraq had one between 62 and 67, and East Timor of 48. All of the rest had a life expectancy between 44 and 50. The African countries did not receive immediate aid in the wake of the wars nor international attention until later on. Palestine has massive world attention and has several agencies devoted just to it. Gaza is one of the largest recipients of humanitarian aid in the world. The West Bank and Gaza had life expectancies--72-74-- higher than Kosovo's, and a GDP per capita twice that of Kosovo's.There are also other serious issues in extrapolating from this report, that I discuss below.

The editorial in question cites this impact statement from June:

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-19-june-2024

At that time, in June, deaths were around 37,400, injures 85,000, and 1.1 million reported facing food insecurity. 90 truckloads of aid arrived a day, and around 70% of aid missions were allowed access, 17% delayed, and 13% cancelled. The war had been 254 days.

Look at September, deaths are now at 41,400, injuries 95,000, but only .5 million face food insecurity. Now 67 aid trucks arrive a day, 80% of missions allowed access, 2.5% cancelled, 17.5% delayed. The war was now 347 days.

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-11-september-2024

The average daily casualty rate for the first 2 months was at maximum 280 a day, while the total for the first for 4 months was 210, for the first 8 months, it was 150, and for the first 11 months it is 125.

It took 10.5 weeks for casualties to reach 20,000, and then twice that (21 weeks total) to reach 30,000, and to double (40,000) it took 45 weeks total.

By .4 years, the death rate had fallen to half of its peak, and by ~1.1 years, it will have fallen to a quarter.

The same is true for food and medical risks.

If we go by death rates outside of the war, and we take a maximalist approach to prior life expectancy and the resulting rate now, we have to compare the 2.1% death rate to what amounts to, at the minimum, a .7% change in LE, vs. the maximalist of 2.8%. So, at most, the excess death to non-war related caused would be 1/3rd that of war deaths. Meaning, that, like Kosovo, where the ratio 0:1, vs. the other countries where the ratios varied 2:1 to 9:1, the Gaza war would be 1:3 (or .33:1)

If 10% of the population if Gaza (and between 2-4% of the entire Palestine population) had died in under a year, I believe we can be assured that Palestinian authorities and the UN would report that number, and yet they have not.

In fact, the Gazan health ministry's own reporting of confirmed dead differs substantially, as roughly 43% of casualties are *not confirmed* dead--but are imputed dead--those who are missing, not yet investigated, or are reported in the media. Since the media reports on the ministry, this creates a circular loop of verification. Israel's official counts are 33-66% lower than Gaza health ministry, but my argument can be made without using these at all.

See for ex:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537121.2024.2394292#references-Section

https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/

So, as basic statistical analysis, a look at the sources cited by the opinion piece and the piece it cites, and other independent sources shows the claim made to be completely and utterly impossible. Opinion pieces should not be allowed as sources on issues, especially where their only evidence is another opinion piece, whose only evidence is a unrelated UN report from which the authors extrapolated a conclusion to a situation lacking any of the key characteristics at issue.

What's more, looking at official statistics from Gazan authorities, the UN, etc, shows that even at their worst, they have gone *down* substantially, falling almost 66% over the course of the year, rather than increasing 400%, while a look at health data onlu aloows *at maximum* a 33% increase over the direct casualty rate, and that is being generous.

As to why the UN report does not sustain the claim that casualties are 5x higher than their direct reported rate, I detail that here.

(I did the following calculations in my head so I apologize for any small errors)

The wars with the highest ratios of indirect to direct casualties had average lengths of 7.5 for the African case, and 9 for all cases, with variances of 64 and 95 respectively, for the moderate cases the lengths were n average 3.8 years with a variance of 6.3 And Kosovo was just a year.

The three non-African wars not including Kosovo had a mean length of 10 years, with S^2 of 200. They had ratios of 1:.8. However if Timor's crisis is considered just the length of the wars themselves then the mean length is 3 years and S^2 of 3.

Including Kosovo changes this to mean of 8 years and 2.5 years in the adjusted format, S^2 of 150 and ratio of 1:2.75. In the latter case the mean is 2.5 and S^2 is 3.

The African wars had mean lengths of 7.6, S^2 of 64, and mean ratios of 1:75. If we drop the brief wars, the mean is 9.7, S^2 is 66, and ratio is 8:1.

The top 6 deadliest war ratios were in wars 9 years of length, 2^2 96, and all 6 were in Africa. They had ratios of 1:7.5. The bottom 6, 4 were not in Africa, the average length was 4, S^2 = 11, and the ratio was 1:3, for the bottom third, half were not in Africa, the average length was 3 years, and the ratio was 1:2. For the deadliest third, all were in Africa, their lengths were 10.5 years, variance 135, and their ratios were 1:9, for the middle third, half were in Africa, the average length was 5.5 years, variance of 18, and ratios of 4.5:1, and for the bottom third, average length was 3 years, variance of 6, and ratio of 2.2:1.

In other words:

The ratio of indirect to direct casualties is directly affected by: 1. Starting life expectancy 2. Income per capita 3. Int'l attention and aid 4. Length of war 5. Whether in Africa or not

On all 5 variables, Palestine most resembles or exceeds Kosovo's characteristics, and Kosovo's ratio was 0:1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amilcontentanalysis (talk • contribs) 09:16, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

The business about indirect deaths is definitely open to criticism. If you can provide a source in a reliable source about that please do so. The rest of what you wrote is just based on Israeli misinformation and your own figures based on that - there's nothing much of any use in the references. In particular if you see someone quoting the stuff in the Tablet about how the Gaza Health Ministry fakes casualty numbers they are not fit to say anything about the statistics. There was one which was slightly better talking about the figures being impossible if 70% were women and children, the 70% dates from when the overall fatalities were given rather than the identified ones where they're more like 60% and they applied it to the identified ones. NadVolum (talk) 16:59, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Amilcontentanalysis please refrain from opening discussions here until you have reached Wikipedia:Extended Confirmed account status (500 edits/30 days of activity). Anything covered by Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles is subject to more strict rules, including WP:ECP. The one exception is making direct {{Edit extended-protected}} suggestions on a talk page, which the above is not, because you don't request a concrete change. The concept is to give newer editors an opportunity develop their skill set in other areas of Wikipedia that are less controversial or strict by necessity. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:09, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

• 1, archiving this.

Selfstudier (talk) 17:12, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 August 2024

To even state that all civilian men could be considered as combatants is highly misleading and deeply offensive. APaul2021 (talk) 20:58, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Bunnypranav (talk) 05:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Typo in "Civilian to Military ratio" section

in the fourth paragraph of the section "civilian to military ratio", the first sentence says "Sources have doubted the Israeli figures by questioning the IDF's ability to distinguish civilians from casualties." I'm going to guess that this is a typo and the author meant to write "Sources have doubted the Israeli figures by questioning the IDF's ability to distinguish civilians from combatants" so I propose that this be changed. Apologies if I've misinterpreted the wording here. Jphuffinstuff (talk) 16:03, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes definitely, though I think it is getting difficult for anyone to distinguish civilians from casualties! NadVolum (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Section entitled Israel Should be expanded

I came to this article looking for information on IDF casualties in the ground operation in Gaza. This information should be added along with information on casualties of attacks on civilians in Israel. I'm not able to do the edit due to restrictions on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Droytenberg (talk • contribs) 16:15, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Update

GHM has managed to list 34,344 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks in the territory, publishing a list of names, ages, gender and ID numbers that cover more than 80% of Palestinians killed in the war so far.

The remaining 7,613 people included in its death toll, which is now above 41,000, are Palestinians whose bodies have been received by hospitals and morgues, but whose identities have not yet been confirmed. Emma Graham-Harrison, Gaza publishes identities of 34,344 Palestinians killed in war with Israel The Guardian 17 September 2024 Nishidani (talk) 20:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Deaths from 'natural' causes

[https://www.qna.org.qa/en/News-Area/News/2024-09/12/0074-palestinian-government-report-number-of-natural-deaths-in-gaza-increased-by-more-than-six-times-due-to%C2%A0-israeli-aggression. Six times greater natural deaths is worth noting I believe - As far as I can make out this would mean another 50,000 'natural' deaths as the natural death rate is 3.8 per 1000 because the population iss very young. Is this what it means? NadVolum (talk) 11:56, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 September 2024

Change Israel Hamas war to Palestinian genocide 2601:5CC:4101:1B90:A8D7:8E08:1648:1012 (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. Shadow311 (talk) 23:39, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Claims of "Highest Civilian ratio" are flatly false, as given even by the wikipedia page on the subject--specific suggestion: remove any superlative claims, and link to academic scholarly sources on historical ratios of civilian casualties

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio

Furthermore, the earlier section claims, citing an editorial, that indirect deaths could be up to 120,000-200,000---aside from being flatly false and ridiculous, this claim is based on an anlysis citing a letter to the lancet

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

which cites a UN report, that argues indirect to direct casualty rates are 4:1 to 16:1

https://www.refworld.org/reference/research/gds/2008/en/64390

In other words, THE VERY BASIS FOR THE CLAIM IS CONTRADICTED BY EVIDENCE EARLIER ADDUCED FOR IT.

IF Israel has the ratio it does, as can be inferred from *otherwise typical* ratios in other wars, it can't be unprecedented for then having a reported ratio less than this !

Furthermore, the UN claims that 90% of deaths in war are civilians!

https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm

Research linked to on the wikiedpai page for indirect casualty ratios

As well as https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8581199/

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043416

https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace

https://education.cfr.org/learn/reading/civilian-consequences-conflict

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians

Cited on this page is the Gaza & Hamas claim that 20% of Hamas fighters have been killed (a number representing 7000-8000 people), and that 20% of deaths are Hamas.

Combined with other claims about deaths of women, children and elderly, this would require less than 10% of casualties to be adult males * not in Hamas*, and either that means 100% of Hamas males above 18 are in Hamas (blatantly false), or that Israel is going out of its way to reduce its mle targets by 80% (nonsensical claim), unless, of course, Gaza health ministry claims (10,000 of which are not confirmed, and a further 10,000 are inferred from media reports, themselves inferred from Ministry claims, creating circular verification).

What's more, daily casualty rates have fallen 75% according to both GHM and UN statistics! (20,00 in first 1.5 months, 15,000 in 4.5 months, 5,000 in 4.5 months--see UN impact report for Gaza 10/28/24).

• Specific Edit 1:*

Thus, ALL superlative claims should be removed, especially those inconsistent with other wikipedia pages, which are internally inconsistent, which contradict their own claims and which are implausible.

These include claims that they are killing civilians at historically unprecedented rates--no data bears that out wars used to have a 1:1 to 1:2 ratio, then by the 20th century this rose to 1:3 to 1:4 and in the 90s and 00s rose to 1:5 to 1:8--a 1:3 - 1:2 ratio, which matches UN, Hamas, and IDF data, is in fact, quite common.

• Specific Edit 2*

Claims implying absurdities, such as that 10% of Gaza's population would have died in under 11 months without Hamas or the UN saying so--as the claim of 200,000 dead implies--should be outright removed.

In addition, if included, the basis and citation should be the Lancet letter, not the Guardian editorial that cites it, and it should be made clear that their claims are NOT a peer reviewed article, but a letter to the editor further based on a selective UN report

• Specific Edit 3*

Contradictory claims should be removed,

If a ratio of 1:3 is unprecedented

It cannot also be the case that, there are 200,000 potential dead, based on a historical norm of ratios of 1:4 to 1:16

and

It cannot also be the case that 20% of Hamas fighters have been killed (which would be 8000/41,000 Palestinian dead), which would imply a 4:1 ratio *AT MAXIMUM* and *only if Israel killed no further adult males*--indeed, the ratios mentioned are based on the casualty figures, less the Hamas reported fighters, less the 10,000 or so people who are missing, and not proven dead. This is according to the Gaza health ministry, not Israeli data, etc.. Since these claim further that 60-70% of these dead are women, children, and elderly, this could be .6-.7 * 25,000, or 15,000-17,500 of the 41,000 which are 36%to 42% of casualties--again, this is what the LINKED SOURCES demonstrate.

• specific Edit 4*

Claims about historical and comparative cases should cite scholarly, peer reviewed research or be removed

• Specific Edit 5*

Remove editorializing, or editorializing through citation/quotation, and remove speculation by third parties, and just link to the primary sources, such as the UN impact reports. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amilcontentanalysis (talk • contribs) 11:54, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The 'specific edits' are nowhere near being specific, so no we can't do that. Also I found it quite difficult to figure out exactly what problem you were addressing, it is really worthwhile trying to make things easy for others, many more people read what's written than write it. Please also when adding a new topic to a talk page click 'Add topic' at the top to put the new topic at the bottom rather than somewhere in the middle and sign your contribution at the end with ~~~~ NadVolum (talk) 12:25, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Definition of "killed in the Israel–Hamas war"

It's still not clear in this article how the GHM defines which deaths to include and which not to. I assume they don't include natural deaths; has this been stated explicitly anywhere? The current lede claims 'The GHM count does not include those who have died from "preventable disease, malnutrition and other consequences of the war".', but the NPR source doesn't back up this claim. Does the GHM at least publish other death tolls (such as from disease or natural causes), so the numbers can be compared?

(The same of course applies to Israel, but the smaller death toll and clear breakdown in the article makes the question less relevant.) Ornilnas (talk) 04:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Professor Spiegel of AOAV says GHM only count trauma deaths in those figures. There's a Palestinian report that the natural death rate has also gone up by a factor of more than six - I haven't see much more details but that would mean something like 50,000 'natural' deaths in the last year as well I believe, so it is in the same order as the deaths from bombs etc. Before the war the death rate was 3.85 per thousand per year as it is quite a young population. NadVolum (talk) 11:37, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I saw your link above about natural deaths, but I couldn't find the report it was based upon. I also found the quote from Spiegel you mentioned, but he doesn't say where he gets it from. If it was just plainly stated by the GHM together with the numbers, what the numbers mean, that would be enough for me to resolve the issue. Ornilnas (talk) 00:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

It is what they mean when they say 'martyr', see Martyrdom in Palestinian society. Those are all martyrs according to the GHM. NadVolum (talk) 09:00, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 October 2024

The line "(123-129 Palestinian, 2-4 Israeli, 3-5 Lebanese and one 1 Syrian)" should be changed to "(123-129 Palestinian, 2-4 Israeli, 3-5 Lebanese and 1 Syrian)" because you wouldn't ever say "one 1 Syrian" it should just be "1 Syrian" Strictlymipsing (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

fixed Rainsage (talk) 05:11, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Sensationalism

This article includes a lancet projection stating that by June 2024 fatalities would reach 180,000 in summation of one of the subsections. It is September and confirmed fatalities have risen marginally from the 35,000 at the time of publication. Seems clearly irrelevant now 93.173.53.240 (talk) 08:39, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The fact that the Lancet letter was published in July 2024 is a clue that assuming the Wikipedia accurately reflects the contents of the letter was a mistake. The context of the projection is "Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as...etc.", and the projection itself is "it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza". It looks like the Wikipedia article needs some corrections. So, the explanation appears to be faulty summarization rather than sensationalism. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

First of all that figure was for all excess deaths because of the war and not just direct ones - that figure currently would be about 90,000 to 100,000 I believe. Also that was in the context then of a looming major famine, that was a real possibility and could easily have led to that figure. Thankfully Israeli then loosened their blockade to allow more food in and the worst of that possibility has been averted. Possibly the bit around there could be improved to make the context clearer. NadVolum (talk) 10:44, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Gaza strip 'civilians' section

Displaying the Gaza death toll graph (which does not make distinction between militants and civilians) right at the beginning of this section gives a misleading impression to readers of excessive civilian death.

The Pie Chart expressing a breakdown of deaths by age and gender uses significantly outdated data, and contradicts source 50, which offers a more complete and up to date count. Changing the pie chart to express those values is likely to give a more accurate view of the conflict.

It is currently October 2024, and deaths are still around 40,000. Including speculation that deaths 'may' approach 186,000 by the end of June 2024, which has long passed, is not useful to the reader and not encyclopedic knowledge. Yilmaz1001 (talk) 20:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Those seem reasonable and fairly straightforward edit request. We don't have any good reliable estimate of militant deaths but I don't think taking it out of that graph would make the number of civilian deaths less excessive in any meaningful way. Yes it would be good to update the pie chart though it wouldn't look all that much different - a 5% increase in the number of adult males. The 40,000 is bodies of people that have died of trauma that aren't under the rubble. There's maybe another 10,000 under the rubble and and a rougly equal number of excess deaths due to other reasons bringing the actual total to somewhere in the region of ninety or a hundred thousand. Which is far less than the 186,000 mentioned. I'm not sure how to phrase that. There's been a lot of criticism of that figure so either that could be put in or just quote the Palestinian report about excess natural deaths plus the figure in June for the direct casualties of the war. NadVolum (talk) 22:35, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the pie chart to reflect the last release of complete data, on Aug 31.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 19:47, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Indirect and total deaths

Talk:Israel–Hamas_war#Total_deaths has a couple of new citations which provide numbers for indirect deaths so far. As always they may be many thousands out but I think they're credible and a reliable source. They give an indirect total of about 67,000 and total death figure of 120,000 so far in the war including both Israeli and Palestinians. NadVolum (talk) 10:41, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I ufortunately came to the conclusion their figure had problems, i particular it extrapolated famine figures but the worst of that was averted at the time, and it just had a question mark for a lot of theindirect deaths. I think the Euro-Med one of 51,000 seems to be reasonably well founded. NadVolum (talk)

Deaths caused by malfunctioning rockets fired at Israel and falling back into Gaza

It would make sense to include this in the discussion, since not all the deaths during the war were caused by Israel. As of six months ago, more than 2000 of the rockets fired at Israel had malfunctioned and fallen back into Gaza. ONE of them hit the courtyard outside a hospital, early in the war, and according to Hamas's own figures, killed 500 people. At first, Israel was blamed for the incident, but it was eventually proved that the exploding ordinance was from an Islamic Jihad misfire. Both American and French intelligence agencies confirmed this. It has been estimated that as many as one in five rockets launched from Gaza at Israel malfunctioned. Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. If one malfunctioning rocket falling back into the city killed 500 people, how many deaths were caused by over 2000 of them? There is confirmation for all the facts mentioned here, and they can be located and cited if this subject is included in the article. Noble Oni (talk) 12:03, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

See the note Warning: active arbitration remedies at the top of this page. Please say whatever you want to say as a specific edit request and please supply a reliable source. NadVolum (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

9:1 civilian to combatant ratio myth

Article states "However, it is lower than the UN's estimate of a 9:1 civilian to militant casualty rate worldwide". This ratio is a well known myth and should be removed for factual inaccuracy. In reality the average civilian to combatant ratio is approximately 1:1. https://aoav.org.uk/2024/netanyahu-got-it-wrong-before-the-us-congress-idfs-clean-performance-in-gaza-is-a-lie/ https://gwern.net/doc/politics/2010-roberts.pdf 157.131.130.26 (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The citation says "RAMESH RAJASINGHAM, Director of Coordination of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the Secretary-General’s report (document S/2022/381) outlines the grim reality that civilians bear the brunt of suffering in armed conflict.  Conflict continued to cause widespread civilian death last year, notably in densely populated areas, where civilians accounted for 90 per cent of the casualties when explosive weapons were used, compared to 10 per cent in other areas."

The sentence in the article does not accurately reflect the source, what do others think? Selfstudier (talk) 09:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, the UN should not have stuck that headline in - it does not reflect what the delegates said. I think we can agreethat Gaza isa heavily populated though so a higher figure is to be expected. But of course Netanyahu was lying as the ratio is nowhere near like he said and he knew it. I think it was a Freudian slip saying "the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare." NadVolum (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

That source quotes a scholarly source[19] that casts doubt on the 9:1 ratio. It might be helpful to explain briefly in the article that this is a common claim, but doubted by scholars.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 01:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Table

@Onceinawhile, once again, I've tried to use a table to make sense of a lot of confusing data. Please check it out and give me feedback. :-) VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Vice regent: an excellent table, very valuable. Hopefully we can add more data over time. The preponderance of sources you have shown gives a result which ties to my own working assumption. My simple working assumption is that the number of combatants killed can be no more than 20% of the direct casualties, which is arrived at by taking the number of non-elderly adult men killed and subtracting the number of women killed (on the assumption that the women killed were almost all civilians and there should be a corresponding number of civilian men killed alongside). And then subtract a further amount to account for the Israeli military’s bad data or immoral assessment of what is a combatant (e.g. targeted strikes on journalists, poets, aid workers, policemen, etc).

What this doesn’t do is account for all the deaths which were caused by the Israeli military’s actions which led to disease, famine, lack of medical facilities etc, which presumably were 95%+ civilian.

One day we will find out what non-combatant casualty value was put into the Israeli military’s calculations. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2024

Change "A study published in The Lancet estimated that indirect deaths in Gaza could be expected to be four times higher than the confirmed death toll, reaching 186,000 people by the end of June 2024." to "A correspondence published in The Lancet estimated that the total death toll arising from the conflict up to June could eventually reach 186,000 people when both direct and indirect deaths are accounted for."

Reason: The Lancet article, when read in full, predicts that the total death toll arising from conflict up to June could reach 186,000 in the "in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases" (This is the definition they provide for indirect deaths). There is no specific timeline provided for the estimate of 186,000 total direct and indirect deaths. The suggestion of "Study" --> "Correspondence" has been provided as it was not a study, but a correspondence. 114.76.124.219 (talk) 09:38, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Done. NadVolum (talk) 12:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

New WP:RS Estimate: At Least 74% of Identified Gazan Fatalities Civilians

Hey,

Today the Action on Armed Violence NGO published a report, with me as author (and subject-matter expert, economist and armed-conflict scholar Mike Spagat, reviewing and approving my analysis), estimating that the civilians to combatants ratio for identified fatalities in Gaza is somewhere in between 2.8:1 and 9.6:1, with the former being a bare-minimum estimate. Meaning that 74% of the total at least are civilians. The punchline is that Israel is not telling the truth in its estimates of an about 1:1 ratio.

Since AOAV is a reliable source often cited in this article, I believe the report belongs in the article per your own policies. However, I won't edit it in myself because as the author of the piece I have an obvious conflict of interest. I'm just flagging it for you guys and you can make your own decision. HistorySpeaksWiki (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I've put the lower level estimate into the table. Perhaps somebody else can write up something suitable into the article as there's a number of other points. NadVolum (talk) 23:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2024 (2)

Change "In July 2024, the British medical journal The Lancet issued a warning that the actual death toll in Gaza from both direct and indirect causes could be more than 186,000." to "In July 2024, correspondence published in British medical journal The Lancet issued a warning that casualty figures based on direct death tolls alone significantly underestimated the total, and conservatively estimated that the conflict up to June would eventually result in up to 186,000 deaths when direct and indirect deaths were accounted for."

Reason: The Lancet correspondence estimate was a prediction of eventual future deaths (Both direct and indirect) that would result from the conflict up to June when indirect deaths included those "in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases." No time frame was provided for this eventual total death number. In addition the estimate was put forward by correspondence published in the Lancet, not by the Lancet itself. 114.76.124.219 (talk) 09:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Done. NadVolum (talk) 12:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi NadVolum. Appreciate the edit of "study" to "correspondence" - I think the more significant change I would advocate for is the change of tense. In both sections I've highlighted in my edit request, the article refers to the Lancet as having estimated that 186,000 deaths had already occurred by June/July 2024. The article itself though puts forth the estimate of 186,000 for the total direct and indirect deaths when accounting for both deaths of the conflict up to June 2024 and occurring in the future as a result of conflict up to June. I have included the relevant section of the article itself with bolding for emphasis: 49.186.232.252 (talk) 02:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death toll was 28 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be between 58 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85 750 deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024. 49.186.232.252 (talk) 02:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Did a hopefully exact copy this time. NadVolum (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Added clarification about the coming months and years. NadVolum (talk) 23:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you NadVolum - I think the page better reflects the published correspondence now. 49.186.43.37 (talk) 05:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)