Hamas’ Inflation of Civilian Deaths in the Gaza War: The Motivations, Trends & Implications
The Henry Jackson Society investigated the death toll figures of the Gaza War on the grounds that Hamas, a direct to the conflict had an interest in overstating the casualty figures. These figures have been reported by media houses in the United States and around the world without clarifying the source. Thus, the HJS and Center for a New Middle East studied the data and compared it with Israeli statistics as well as other relevant sources. The findings indicated that the figures issued by the Hamas Ministry of Health are overstated. The key highlights of their study include:
1. Misclassification of men as women to inflate female fatalities (people called “Mohammed” as first names are labeled as women)
2. Adults were widely registered as children
3. Disproportionate deaths of fighting-age men
4. Inclusion of natural deaths in the reports
5. The Media’s misleading reporting of combat deaths (Yahya Sinwar was listed as one of the casualties with no distinction in the media or elsewhere)[1]
All of this points to the unreliability of the figures presented by the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. These inherently misleading figures are quoted with minimal caution by the international media, thereby acting as a mouthpiece of the Hamas government of Gaza.
A Lancet publication of July 2024 stated that the Gaza Health Ministry’s figures are consistent with “independent analysis” and figures from the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) staff[2]. Six months down the line, many revelations have come up.
First, UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas has been revealed to be one that contributes to radicalization, incitement, and terrorism. Secondly, the Lancet publication under review claimed that the death toll in Gaza after the October 7 War was probably higher since the vital infrastructure of the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza had been destroyed. Thirdly, the publication went as far as stating that “…it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza”[3].
This is a Lancet publication written in a scholarly context by reputable experts in their respective fields. One is forced to wonder how many people relied on this publication to present submissions that were not accurate with respect to the death toll of this war. How many outright lies have been conjured outside an empirical research context by malicious journalists and other informal forums?
Hence, a critical analysis of the reliability and validity of the generation of the figures presented by the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry of Gaza was necessary.
The report showed that thousands of people who died of natural causes during the war were documented as part of the death toll[4]. There was no allowance for the annual natural death rate of approximately 5,000 in Gaza and it was assumed that everyone who died of natural causes was killed by Israel – not by a war started by Hamas or natural causes. The war gave the Gaza Ministry of Health a blank check to impute every Gazan death on Israel.
Deaths before the Gaza War were not recorded outside the context of the war. It was attributed to the war. And then, the executions of Hamas, which happen regularly in Gaza were not documented as Hamas executions, but all presented in the Gaza War death toll and attributed to Israel.
The refusal to distinguish between combatant deaths from civilian deaths shows clearly that the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza had a malicious intention to paint Israel in a negative light. Many international media houses took the bait and smeared Israel in very unpleasant ways.
Then, there were so many names with “Mohammed” as the first name that were recorded as “women”. It is just unthinkable that any female on the planet will be called “Mohammed”. In a sample of death entries in August 2024 alone, as many as 103 names were marked as female although their first names were “Mohammed”. This shows there was no simple accident or error, but a systematic process to present an inflated female death toll.
Another significant discrepancy was in the listing of adults – some as old as 22 and 31 as “infants”. This clearly inflated the number of children killed in the war.
Also, the recording process for the most part did not require any proof – persons reported missing by relatives could be reported as dead.
It is fair to say that if this was an election, these pieces of evidence would be sufficient to annul the results.
Despite all these symptoms of apparent errors and fraud, there is significant evidence that the death of men in a fighting age was significantly high. We see from Figure 7 of the HJS report that the number of males between ages 20 and 45 was significantly high. There is no doubt that if the falsified male names presented as females were added, the number of men within the fighting age would have been much higher.
The role of older males over the age of 60 in the war effort cannot be fully understood from the data. It is possible that younger combatants were recorded as older males (that cannot be easily refuted).
From all this, it is clear there was a deliberate plan to compile the death toll for propaganda purposes[5]. Israel has repeatedly told the world that Hamas members use schools and mosques to plan operations against Israeli forces in Gaza and fire rockets at Israel.
From these operations, over 800 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 War started. Israel states that some 17,000 Hamas terrorists have been killed in the war, though the figures cannot be fully verified[6]. However, the international media has repeatedly portrayed Israel as deliberately targeting innocent civilians[7].
In conclusion, the Henry Jackson Society’s “Questionable Counting” report shows that there is evidence of significant fraud and error in the documentation of the death toll in the current Gaza War. The unforeseen and unprecedented military pressure Israel unleashed on Gaza gives the Ministry of Health a motivation to overstate the death toll to intensify international pressure on Israel. Thus, the circumstances converge to show that the death toll data is highly unreliable and apparently misleading. This results from the refusal to separate between combatants and civilians, the recording of men as women and fighting-aged males as children or infants. Deaths from natural causes were not documented, and the role of older males in contributing to Hamas’ war effort is not clearly understood. Above all, there were weaknesses in the reporting process that allowed people to report missing relatives as dead. All this shows that the figures for the deaths in Gaza are not reliable. And the least any media house can do is to quote these figures with caution. In the ongoing international cases against Israel, it is likely these figures will be clarified and the world will get to see the truth of what actually happened in this Gaza War.
[1] Andrew Fox. "Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza" The Henry Jackson Society 2024. Available at: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/HJS-Questionable-Counting-–-Hamas-Report-web.pdf
[2] Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee & Salim Yusuf. "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential" The Lancet Correspondence 404 10449 pp237-238 Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
[3] Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee & Salim Yusuf. "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential" The Lancet Correspondence 404 10449 pp237-238 Available at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext
[4] Andrew Fox. "Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza" The Henry Jackson Society 2024. Available at: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/HJS-Questionable-Counting-–-Hamas-Report-web.pdf
[5] Patrick Sawer. "Number of civilians killed in Gaza ‘inflated to vilify Israel’" The Telegraph. Published: December, 14, 2024. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/14/number-civilians-killed-gaza-inflated-to-vilify-israel/
[6] Deirdre Bardolf. "Gaza death toll inflated to promote anti-Israel narrative, study finds" New York Post. Published: December 14, 2024. Available at: https://nypost.com/2024/12/14/world-news/gaza-death-toll-inflated-to-promote-anti-israel-narrative-study/
[7] Patrick Sawer. "Number of civilians killed in Gaza ‘inflated to vilify Israel’" The Telegraph. Published: December, 14, 2024. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/14/number-civilians-killed-gaza-inflated-to-vilify-israel/
