64,000 deaths due to violence between October 2023 and June 2024

An independent study by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) suggests the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza underreported the death toll due to violence by approximately 41%.

The LSHTM study estimated 64,260 traumatic injury deaths in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 compared to the 37,877 reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The findings, published in The Lancet, indicate that approximately 3% of the population of Gaza has died due to violence with an analysis showing that 59% of these deaths were women, children, and the elderly.

The researchers used a statistical method known as ‘capture-recapture analysis’ to estimate the number of traumatic injury deaths. This method overlaps data from multiple sources to arrive at estimates of deaths when not all data are recorded. The sources included Palestinian Ministry of Health hospital morgue records, a respondent-driven online survey, and social media obituaries.

The significant underreporting of traumatic injury deaths highlights the deterioration of Gaza’s health care infrastructure and consequent inability to count the dead amidst ongoing violence. Based on the estimated underreporting rate, the total traumatic injury death toll as of October 2024 is thought to exceed 70,000 Palestinians.

Zeina Jamaluddine, lead author at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said, “The UN’s Human Rights Office has already condemned the high number of civilians killed in the war in Gaza, and our findings suggest that the traumatic injury death toll is underreported by around 41%. These results underscore the urgent need for interventions to safeguard civilians and prevent further loss of life.”

The total death toll due to the war is likely to be higher as the analysis does not account for non-trauma-related deaths caused by disruption to health care, food insecurity, inadequate water and sanitation, and disease outbreaks.