New Report on Fatalities in Gaza Makes No Sense
While some have trumpeted this obscure report claiming as many as 680,000 dead in Gaza, the numbers simply don't add up. We need much better data.
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From the day Israel began its genocide in Gaza, it also began assailing the agency which it had previously relied on for casualty statistics in Gaza: the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH).
Despite Israeli and American intelligence, along with a virtual unanimity of opinion among international humanitarian organizations testifying to the independence and reputation for conservatism and accuracy of Gaza’s MoH, the United States and most of the mainstream media in the West gave credibility to Israel’s completely fabricated campaign of suspicion about the MoH, consistently referring to it as “Hamas-run,” implying that it was untrustworthy.
It's a disinformation campaign that takes advantage of the fog of war, and has been remarkably successful, despite the fact that, from October 8, 2023, to this very day, the MoH figures have not been credibly assailed (although several biased and unscientific attempts have withered under scrutiny) and have remained both conservative and dependable. Israeli officials have confirmed this, albeit quietly.
One effect of the campaign is that we really don’t know how many people Israel has killed in Gaza. We know that even the Israel Defense Forces, which have an extremely broad definition of “combatants” which include civil functionaries in the Gazan government, former members of Hamas, and most men of fighting age, estimates that some 83% of those it has killed in Gaza were non-combatants.
It is also a virtual certainty that the official toll from the MoH is an undercount, as many people who are missing and presumed dead, as well as many deaths that have not been reported at hospitals or other sources the Ministry draws from have not been counted. But what is the upper limit of likely deaths in Gaza? We don’t know, and that invites wild speculation.
Making matters worse, it is unacceptable to confine the death count for which Israel is responsible to those who have been killed by Israeli bullets, bombs, and missile strikes. Israel has intentionally imposed a full siege on Gaza. It has willfully starved every adult and child in the Strip. It has denied medical care, and even access to medicine, to Gaza. It has intentionally bred conditions where disease is certain to run rampant, and where injuries and medical conditions that would otherwise pose little more than a temporary inconvenience can be fatal. And all of that is in addition to the expected secondary deaths in war-torn countries. Those deaths count too.
We need to know the full scale of Israel’s crimes
Thinking in those terms, who knows how many people Israel has killed in Gaza?
That lack of knowledge means that people will try to provide answers. But, if estimates come out that can be portrayed as fanciful or as attempts to exaggerate, this only makes the work of getting people to understand the full horror of Gaza and, most importantly, to get this obscenity to stop, that much harder.
Two professors—Gideon Polya and Richard Hil—try to get to a figure that matches reality, and it’s important to do our best, as laypeople, to see if the numbers make sense. Polya’s and Hil’s findings fail the test of scrutiny, although that doesn’t necessarily mean their estimates are far from reality.
Polya and Hil claim that Israel has killed some 680,000 people in Gaza since October 7, 2023, of whom 490,000 are under 18, and 380,000 under five years of age.
They arrive at this figure by citing a study from the beginning of 2025 which estimates that violent deaths in Gaza have been undercounted by around 41%. That report suggests that even the conservative estimate, counting only the violent deaths, would find that the number of around 64,000 people having been killed (which is close to the current figure the Ministry of Health is reporting) was actually reached over fourteen months ago.
They then cite a report from Dr. Devi Sridhar, who, as chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh is certainly a reliable source, suggesting that deaths from deprivation are around four times those of violent deaths. Through various, generally reasonable estimates, they arrive at their figure of 680,000 dead.
It’s a staggering number. I hope it’s a wildly high guess, but it is, of course, impossible to confirm or disprove. The one thing that is completely off is their report that 380,000 children under the age of five have been killed.
That’s simply impossible.
According to a report from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics from April 2024, the expected total of all children under five years of age in Gaza at that time was 341,790.
Obviously, then, there is no way Israel has killed 380,000 children under five in Gaza since the beginning of the genocide. Not only is this obviously untrue, but it is also sure to be wildly high. And, since the figure was arrived at through the two professors’ use of estimates and extrapolation based on other conflicts (when one can argue that both Israel’s unimaginable cruelty and the international humanitarian community’s tireless efforts to help make this an unusual conflict in many ways), it throws all of their calculations into question.
This was sloppy research, and that is a dangerous thing. That is truer because the world—especially in Jerusalem, Berlin, London, and Washington—is full of sharks who are looking to seize on any hint of exaggeration or incorrect data to further delegitimize already marginalized and silenced Palestinian voices who are desperately trying to get help to save them from the greatest crimes of the 21st century.
Israel is merciless enough, and has been so sadistic and ruthless in its campaign in Gaza that I would not be surprised to find that 680,000 people—which would be almost 30% of Gaza’s pre-genocide population—had been killed.
But Polya and Hil do not make that case. And we need to be careful about conclusions that are drawn not from data but from estimates and extrapolations built on other estimates and extrapolations. That’s what we have in their report.
There is good reason that Palestinians in Gaza have been conservative in the numbers they have been shouting to the world. Nearly 65,000 killed and some 163,000 injured—figures which amount to nearly 10% of the entire population of Gaza—is horrifying enough, and we can be quite certain that these are vast undercounts.
I do hope they are not such great undercounts that we already have 680,000 dead, which would, proportionally, mean every single Gazan left (about 1.7 million) suffered a significant injury. But until we can gather precise information, we just don’t know.
But Polya and Hil were demonstrably, and significantly wrong about the number of small children killed, and I am thankful for that small favor, and their entire study needs to be disregarded as a result. They need to be much more careful in their research, as this was an obvious error that should have been caught right away. Palestinians desperately need them, and all of us who are trying to bring the reality of Gaza to more eyes and ears, to do better.
News Roundup
Egypt discovers Israeli attempts to kill Hamas leaders on its soil
Middle East Eye, September 12, 2025
The Disappearance of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya
By Amel Guettatfi, Drop Site News, September 12, 2025
Venezuela condemns US destroyer for hostile occupation of fishing vessel
Al Jazeera, September 13, 2025
As the world recognizes a Palestinian state, Israel’s E1 plan moves to bury it
By Shatha Yaish, +972 Magazine, September 12, 2025
Arab-Islamic summit in Qatar looks to send 'strong message' to Israel
The New Arab, September 13, 2025
Damage control: Can US calm Gulf security concerns after Israel strikes?
By Jared Szuba, Al-Monitor, September 13, 2025
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How many newborns and fetuses are surviving? They have a high birth rate, the population is young. Back of the envelope: If women are fertile and married for say 27 years and have say 6 to 9 children then they would normally be popping out one every 3 to 4 and a half years on average. Half the young population are women, say 40% are fertile times 1.7 million times 2 years. I get between 266,666 to 150,000 babies would normally have been born.
The rest of the numbers seem extremely solid. I would assume that's a typo.