Talk:Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war

Translation requested

Mistamystery you added content sourced to two PDFs (apparently in Arabic) hosted on telegram channels: [1] [2].

My first question is did you actually read these sources before you decided to cite these sources to add content? Or did you simply trust they were used appropriately by Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is likely not a reliable source? If you did read the sources, can you please post the content and its translation below? Thanks! VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:17, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I translated and read all the sources and did not depend solely on the secondary.

The originating source, while opinionated, didn’t mince the basics contained in the reports. On phone rn, will post the translations shortly. Mistamystery (talk) 20:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

The source is the Gaza Health Ministry Telegram channel - which is the principal mechanism that they deliver updates and reports: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza

First report - 3/31/24 - https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5254

Translation:

Cover:

State of Palestine

Health Sector Emergency Report

For 177th Day of Aggression

Sunday 31 March 2024

-

Pg 1:

The cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression reached 32,845 martyrs, the majority of whom were children and women (17,775) of whom were registered through the central information system, while more than 15,070 martyrs were monitored according to media sources due to the interruption of communication with hospitals in Gaza, the north, and central hospitals, and the Nasser Medical Complex), and the number of wounded exceeded more than 75,392 wounded.

-

Pg 13:

Cumulative report of the wounded

The cumulative number of wounded since the beginning of the aggression reached 75,392 (51,697) of whom were registered, while it was monitored

More than 23,695 martyrs, according to reliable media sources, due to a lack of communication with hospitals. Mistamystery (talk) 21:24, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Second report: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5258

Cover:

State of Palestine

Health Sector Emergency Report

For 178th Day of Aggression

Monday 1 April 2024

Pg 1:

The cumulative total number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression reached 32,916 martyrs, of whom 20,653 had complete data from the Ministry of Health, in addition to 12,263 martyrs who did not have complete data.

Pg 7:

The cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression reached 32,916 martyrs, of whom 20,653 completed data with the Ministry of Health (17,789) listed in the records of the Ministry of Health and 2,864 were reported by their families, in addition to 12,263 martyrs who have incomplete data.

Martyrs with complete information are the martyrs listed in the records of the Ministry of Health who have been registered through the medical staff directly, or by informing the families of the martyrs.

Martyrs who do not have complete information that includes (ID number, full name, gender, date of birth, date

Note: Citation and loss of any of this data is considered incomplete data. Mistamystery (talk) 21:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Third report: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5271

Cover:

State of Palestine

Health Sector Emergency Report

For 181st Day of Aggression

Thursday April 4 2024

Pg 1:

The cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression reached 33,091 martyrs, of whom 21,720 had complete data from the Ministry of Health, in addition to 11,371 martyrs who did not have complete data.

Pg 7:

The cumulative number of martyrs since the beginning of the aggression has reached 33,091 martyrs, of whom 21,720 have completed data with the Ministry of Health (18,934) are listed in the Ministry of Health’s records and 2,786 have been reported by their families, in addition to 11,371 martyrs who do not have complete data. Mistamystery (talk) 21:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

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 [3]. 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 [4] 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 [5][6]) but also admitted of using media reports as sources for half of the reported deaths, likely anti-Israelian media [7]. 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 [8], 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[9] 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[10], 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. [11]"

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 [12]. Internally they use the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry [13]. 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 [14] 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 [15], which is the same source on the relative wiki page, and the mention that the WHO considered it relieble in [16] 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)

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)

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.

([17]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)

Problems with a number of footnotes

There are a number of problems with multiple citations and their presentation, laid out below:

FN 16 -- This citation is portrayed as coming from OCHA, but is actually a press release from Islamic Relief Worldwide, which the U.S. Envoy to Combat Antisemitism criticized for "blatant and horrifying anti-Semitism and glorification of violence exhibited at the most senior levels" in a 2020 statement (1). The footnote should either be amended to accurately name the source, or it should be replaced with an actual statement from OCHA making the same point.

FN 23 - There is nothing in the linked AP article related to the sentence this footnote is attached to. Is it hanging from an earlier edit? The footnote should be removed if so.

"As of 29 February, the Gaza Health Ministry reports that at least 30,000 Palestinians[27] (including over 10,000 minors) have been killed, over 70,000 injured,[28][29] and 10,000 are missing under rubble,[27] totaling over 110,000 casualties since the war began, which is about 5% of Gaza's 2.3 million population."

This sentence as written implies that the Gaza MOH is making each of the claims itself. However, the claim of over 10,000 minors killed is only currently made by the Government Media Office, which is part of the Gaza Ministry of Information. The MOH has recorded 7,619 children killed as of its 4/23 HSE Report (2), and does not currently make any claims about the overall number or proportion of men, women, children, or elderly killed in its reportage. The claim that 10,000 are missing was made by an employee of the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health in Ramallah, not by the Gaza MOH (3), and in its official reports, the PA MOH says the figure is 8,100 (4). The GMO says the figure is over 7,000 (5). Neither have updated their estimates of the missing in some time. The sentence should be rewritten to clarify which institution is claiming what -- as is, it is misleading.

Pie Chart showing demographic breakdown of those killed should be updated to Prof. Spagat's April 21 article analyzing a 4/1 Gaza MOH release that was provided to him (6). As is, it is 6 months out of date, since the cited analysis was of the 10/26 data release from the MOH.

FN 44 -- As others have pointed out, the Ukraine civilian death toll presented is what has been verified by OHCHR, which uses a rigorous methodology and does not include civilian deaths which have occurred in Russian-controlled areas (7). This is therefore a very poor comparison, since the UN has been open that it has not attempted to verify any MOH claims (8) about Gaza fatalities.

FN 48 -- Similarly, this claim by Save the Children relies on UN data from the Secretary-General's report on children and armed conflict, which the UN admits is severely incomplete (9). An illustrative quote from the 2023 report: "The information does not represent the full scale of violations against children, but provides United Nations-verified trends in grave violations against children, given that access for monitors remains a challenge." (I.2) The 2021-2023 reports (10) reflects that this method is a severe undercount, reporting only 66 child deaths in Ethiopia despite the ongoing war in Tigray, estimated to have killed between 162,000 and 378,000 beween November 2020 and November 2022 (11). Unless we are to believe that children genuinely made up less than 0.04% of casualties in that war, this is clearly an undercount. Save the Children was being exceptionally misleading with their claim, and it is not a valid comparison to set verified deaths against claims by one party to a conflict.

FN 63 -- This Euromed Human Rights Monitor citation is presented as a counter to IDF claims about the civilian-combatant ratio. The Wikipedia article correctly states that the IDF did not provide evidence to support its December 2023 claim of 5,000 militants killed. However, neither did Euromed -- their methodology is completely opaque, and that should be stated as well.

FN 70 -- Why does an Indian novelist have standing to discuss casualty recording and Battle Damage Assessments? With the level of scrutiny applied to sources critical of MOH claims about casualty figures, this is a very low-quality inclusion that should be deleted, or replaced with an actual expert's statement.

FN 75 -- This is a ridiculously speculatory inclusion which is not worth including in a rigorous presentation of the casualty figures. Outside analysts have little to no insight into Hamas' calculations or its fighters, and the idea that heavy losses will affect a terrorist group has little relationship with reality. Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban, for example, all suffered enormous losses relative to the damage they inflicted to coalition forces, and yet all continue to exist and operate. Insurgent or terrorist organizations do not operate or think in the same way as conventional militaries, which is the logic this opinion piece applies to them.

In response, Human Rights Watch stated that after three decades working in Gaza and conducting its own investigation, it considers Gaza Health Ministry's totals to be reliable.[99]

This is a misstatement of the AJ liveblog quote from Omark Shakir (12), which says: "Shakir said when HRW previously conducted its own investigations into certain attacks, it did not find major discrepancies with the numbers of the Health Ministry." Investigations into specific incidents are very different from an overall analysis of the death toll claims. Moreover, HRW has since released a report on the al-Ahli hospital explosion which says in regard to the MOH claim of 471 killed that HRW was "unable to corroborate the count, which is significantly higher than other estimates, displays an unusually high killed-to-injured ratio, and appears out of proportion with the damage visible on site." (13) The sentence citing this article should be changed to reflect that Shakir was speaking about investigations into previous incidents, not an investigation into the overall death toll in the current war (as it currently implies), or should find a different HRW/Shakir quote.

FN 104-105 -- These points remain wildly out of date. There is not currently communication between the Gaza Health Ministry and the Government of Israel regarding updates to the population registry, and citing a splash page for COGAT's Population Registrar Unit does not provide convincing information that the regular process is occurring during wartime. Moreover, as Prof. Michael Spagat has noted (14), 1,486 MOH death records have invalid IDs, 470 have no IDs, and 792 have the incorrect number of digits in their IDs. Without a valid ID number, these deaths could not be updated in the Population Registry anyway. This section should be edited to reflect the fact that these processes are non-functional under wartime conditions.

FN 111 -- This citation misdates the publication of the Google Form by more than 2 months. The Google Form was originally published on January 6 (15), and can be directly cited via the MOH Telegram.

FN 112 -- "As of February 29th, 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."

This misstates the date the Gaza MOH first stated it was using media reports -- that was on December 12, in a Health Sector Emergency Report covering 10/7-12/11 (16).

(1) https://2017-2021.state.gov/islamic-relief-worldwide/

(2) https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5355

(3) https://www.npr.org/2024/02/29/1234159514/gaza-death-toll-30000-palestinians-israel-hamas-war? "The health ministry's director of international cooperation in the West Bank, Dr. Yaser Bozya, says he works closely with ministry colleagues in Gaza. Speaking with NPR in late January from his office in Ramallah, he said an estimated 10,000 people are missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza — but even that number is low."

(4) See an archive of PA MOH reports here: https://archive.org/details/moh-ramallah-reports/ (5) https://t.me/mediagovps/2744

(6) https://aoav.org.uk/2024/analysis-of-new-death-data-from-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns/

(7) https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/09/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-24-september-2023 "OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration."

(8) https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-reported-impact-day-201 "Disclaimer: The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures; the current numbers have been provided by the Ministry of Health or the Government Media Office in Gaza and the Israeli authorities and await further verification. Other yet-to-be verified figures are also sourced."

(9) https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/S_2023_363.pdf

(10) Accessible here: https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/un_documents_type/secretary-generals-reports/?ctype=Children%20and%20Armed%20Conflict&cbtype=children-and-armed-conflict

(11) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War#cite_note-martinplaut-43

(12) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/24/israel-hamas-war-live-fuel-shortfall-could-force-un-to-halt-work-in-gaza-2?update=2437504

(13) https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/26/gaza-findings-october-17-al-ahli-hospital-explosion

(14) https://aoav.org.uk/2024/analysis-of-new-death-data-from-gazas-health-ministry-reveals-several-concerns/

(15) https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4718

(16) https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4576 38.104.28.58 (talk) 19:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Just a general note on your FN 75 comment. Hamas is not Isis or the Taleban. Those are religious movements where the dead will get however many virgins it is. Hamas is not, it is a secular movement fighting for the land and their identity. Not all terrorists are the same but in general they do fall into either one of those two types and you can actually reason with that second type. Also terrorist organisations often are more reliable about things like this, especially ones that depend on a wide secular support want thir message to not be treated as lies, compared to a place like America for instance where a large proportion will always follow the government no matter what. NadVolum (talk) 11:54, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Palestinians casualties numbers might be overstated

There are many evidence that the numbers coming from Gaza Ministry of Health (controlled by Hamas, Gaza government for the last 18 years) are unreliable.

Here is two https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/gaza-fatality-data-has-become-completely-unreliable

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/04/09/hamas-run-gaza-health-ministry-admits-to-flaws-in-casualty-data/ 147.235.218.141 (talk) 20:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

An Israeli pressure group plus they are unreliable because they admit to flaws when the whole place is a mess? NadVolum (talk) 11:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

There is a war going on, I don't think any numbers can be treated as reliable with or without context. But in order to maintain neutrality context has to be limited.

Writing "Hamas run Gazan Ministry of Health" doesn't seem like it would be neutral and may mislead people in thinking the numbers are completely fabricated. 163.53.144.63 (talk) 13:29, 28 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)

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)

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)

Support: Sky News (UK) reports state that while Gazan Health Ministry figures were generally reliable early into the conflict they have been unreliable since the 10th of November due to the collapse of the hospital and mortuary system with likely undercounting.

https://news.sky.com/story/israel-hamas-war-health-system-collapse-in-gaza-leaves-authorities-struggling-to-count-the-dead-13107279 202.138.39.9 (talk) 07:20, 29 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)