Is the Palestinian Death Toll Reported by the Gaza Health Ministry Trustworthy? 

On October 7^th 2023, 1,195 people were killed in Israel, including 736 Israeli civilians, 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of Israel’s security forces. Around 250 additional people were taken hostage (see HERE and HERE). 

In response to this attack, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) was waged a war on Gaza, where (as of April 8^th, 2025) 50,810 Palestinians have been killed (approximately 70% are women and children), 115,688 have been injured, and at least 14,222 additional people are reported missing and presumed dead under the rubble. Of those killed, 17,881 are children, 2,562 are 2 years old or younger, 214 are newborn infants, 1,155 are medical personnel, 205 journalists, and 194 civil defense workers (see HERE and HERE).

Few people question the death toll on October 7^th. Many people do question the death toll of Palestinians, since these numbers are recorded and produced by the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM), which is under the governing authority of Hamas. “Can we trust statistics produced by a terrorist organization?” is a question I often hear, and one I’ve personally wrestled with. 

I’ve followed the war very closely, and I’m passionate about making sure my beliefs are based on facts. This has been challenging since so much misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and down-right lies surround the war in Gaza, on all sides. Through all the fog of war and thicker fog in the media’s reporting of it, I currently find more evidence that the death toll reported by the GHM is largely accurate, as opposed to evidence to question that death toll. This is not because I simply trust the GHM, but because their numbers have been corroborated or endorsed by many outside sources and other pieces of evidence. While I am interested in making sure our understanding of the death toll is accurate, I am also interested in why we’re so passionate about numbers and what we do with those numbers.

Counting the dead in the midst of war is, of course, difficult. Some bodies are so incinerated that they cannot be identified. Others are still buried under the rubble. Other bodies have been so decimated so that retrieving various body parts and identifying to whom they belong is nearly impossible. 

Moreover, it’s important to note that the GHM is not the same as the militant wing of Hamas. Hamas is an armed political party. But not every person who us under the governing authority of Hamas is part of its military wing, similar to how not everyone who works for the U.S. government is part of its military wing. The GHM is made up of doctors, civil servants, data analysts, etc. who may not even align with Hamas’ militant views. I do not know what influence or oversight the militant wing of Hamas has over the GHM—if any. So I believe it would be inaccurate to assume, unless we have evidence, that the numbers produced by the GHM come from, or are determined by, Hamas’ militant wing.

In any case, here’s why I currently believe that the death toll reported by the GHM is largely accurate.

First, there’s evidence from previous wars that the death toll numbers produced by the GHM were accurate (see HERE and HERE). For instance, in the 2014 war in Gaza, the GHM reported that 2,310 Palestinians were killed. Israel said that 2,125 were killed. The UN’s numbers were somewhere in-between (see HERE, HERE, and HERE). In the 2008 war, the GHM said 1,440 Palestinians were killed, and the UN reported 1,385. In the 2021 war, the GHM said 260 Palestinians were killed, and the UN reported 256 (see HERE). These differences are not substantial. 

If the previous death toll numbers reported by the GHM have been shown to be largely accurate through corroborative evidence, then there’s reason to believe that the current numbers are largely accurate as well.

Second, Israeli Intelligence believes the numbers reported by the GHM are accurate. Here’s a summary of an Israeli news source written in Hebrew, which I’ve translated through Google Translate: 

“The army checked and found that the reports of the deaths in the Ministry of Health in Gaza were reliable. Intelligence sources told ‘Local Conversation’ that the army monitored senior officials in the Ministry of Health in Gaza and concluded that their reports of the deaths were reliable. The data is used by the army in assessing the situation in Gaza.” (Translated from THIS Hebrew article. See also HERE and HERE.)

Third, other outlets and organizations confirm that the death toll numbers produced by the GHM are largely accurate, including the UN, the WHO, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. Two articles published in the highly respected medical journal The Lancet, by independent teams at two different universities—one by coauthors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the other by scholars at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health—have found the GHM casualty counts to be reliable (see HERE and HERE) Other sources have also confirmed the numbers produced by the GHM (see HERE and HERE). 

Fourth, many medical volunteers—including 45 surgeons, emergency room physicians, and nurses—suggest that the death toll is much higher than what has been reported by the GHM. Every one of these medical professionals reports that “children in Gaza…suffered violence that must have been deliberately directed at them,” since “every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head.” The deliberate targeting of children has also been reported by THIS Jewish-American doctor in his first week of volunteering in Gaza. These medics also believe that “the real death toll is much higher than the Palestinian ministry of health’s casualty figure[s]” (see HERE). Barbara Leaf, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, agrees (see HERE). 

Fifth, several experts have predicted that      the death toll will actually be at least four times higher than the current numbers reported by the GHM, once indirect deaths are considered. Many will end up dying as a result of serious injuries that can’t be properly cared for, given the lack of sanitation and clean water and the utter destruction of the health care industry. Others will die from widespread diseases and from lack of food, health care, and clean water. Researchers of casualties in war note that the ending death toll from wars always exceeds the reported death tolls by a factor of 3-10x more than those killed directly in the war. Therefore, “[a]pplying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37 396 deaths reported [in July 2024,] it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza” (see HERE). By now (9 months after this article was written), this conservative estimated death toll is closer to around 250,000+ (see HERE, HERE, and HERE). 

Lastly, as noted above, it’s been estimated that more than 14,000 bodies are under the rubble in Gaza and most have not been factored into the current death toll. The current death toll reported by the GHM typically counts the dead bodies that have been identified, not the dead bodies presumed to be buried under the rubble. 

In light of these pieces of corroborative evidence, I don’t currently have substantial reasons to doubt the death toll numbers produced by the GHM.

Two recent issues have caused some people to question the accuracy of the GHM-produced death toll. 

First, allegedly, some dead females have been reported with the male name “Muhammad.” (This claim is circulating on Twitter, but I haven’t verified it, nor have I found any credible news source reporting it.) Even if this claim were true, it is logically unpersuasive evidence that the GHM is fabricating the numbers. If the GHM were fabricating the numbers, why would they ascribe a male name to a non-existent female who was killed? Why not ascribe a female name to “invent” a female who was killed? The other two logical explanations for female deceased being reported as named “Muhammed” are: (1) this Twitter claim is misinformed or lying, or (2) the GHM made an honest mistake in mis-naming the deceased, which still would show that a person (male or female) was killed and therefore wouldn’t affect the death toll numbers.

Second, some recent reports point out that the GHM recently reduced the death toll by more than 3,000 and therefore we cannot trust their reporting. For instance, an article in the Jerusalem Post says: “Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully ‘identified’ deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These ‘deaths’ never happened. The numbers were falsified – again” (see HERE).

From my vantage point, this Jerusalem Post article shows evidence of poor journalism, which can easily be detected from a close reading. For a more accurate assessment of the change in numbers, see THIS article, which points out that the change in numbers is not “from declared dead to declared alive,” but accounts of the dead that still need to be verified. This has been done in the past, and when the accuracy has been verified, many who were declared dead and then taken off of the list in need of verification, were put back on the list of “dead” when their death was verified. 

Also, as Gabriel Epstein (a research assistant at US thinktank The Washington Institute for Near East Policy) noted in the aforementioned article: “there’s no reason to think the errors are the result of deliberate manipulation intended to inflate the share of women and children among the dead. Epstein notes: “If 90% of the removed entries were men aged 18-40, that would look like manipulation…But it doesn’t look like that.” The article notes that: “Of those entries removed since the start of the war and whose demographic information was recorded, 41% are men aged 18 to 60, while 59% are women, children and elderly people. By comparison, 44% of remaining deaths are working-age men. This means that the removals have had the effect of slightly reducing the share of women and children in the official list.” 

Furthermore, the Jerusalem Post article is misleading in the age breakdown. It says that “Approximately 72% of fatalities are aged 13-55 and are men.” But according to “the internationally accepted definition of children, codified in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC),” the category of “children” is defined “as individuals under the age of 18.” And “since 1991, Israel has signed and ratified the CRC and applies the definition to Israeli children” (see HERE). This means that males ages 13-17 are actually children and are therefore part of the 72% of 13-55-year old males reported to have been killed. It is untrue, then, that 72% of Palestinians killed in Gaza are men, by Israeli and Palestinian definitions of “men” vs. “children.” 

In short, claims that the change in numbers was intended to increase the percentage of civilians-to-combatants killed in the war on Gaza lacks substantial evidence. If anything, the change in numbers suggests that the GHM is actually concerned for accuracy. If not, why make the change? 

Lastly, the Jerusalem Post and other articles are misleading when they imply that all males aged 13-55 are combatants. For instance, the Jerusalem Post article says that this “demographic category aligns with Hamas combatants.” This is evidence of poor journalism. The 2023 census of Gaza says that there are 453,900 males ages 15-55. But Israel and other orgs believed there were 20,000 – 30,000 Hamas combatants at the beginning of war in Oct 2023. (Many have died, and many have been added, but the number today is almost certainly not higher than 30,000). This means that only about 15% of males roughly of combatant age are actually Hamas combatants. 

In summary, the numbers reported by the GHM need to be corroborated. And when they are, through several different angles, I have little reason to doubt the general accuracy of the numbers. I could be wrong, and if I’m mistaken in any of my claims, I eagerly invite any correction that’s supported by valid evidence. For now, I find the accusation that people who believe the death toll are simply “believing a terrorist organization” is without merit.  

I do want to raise a question, which isn’t directly related to analyzing the data. Why are some American Christians in particular working so hard to believe that the death toll in Gaza is lower than what has been reported (and corroborated)? What if it’s not 17,881 children who have been massacred, but only, say, 15,000? Does this affect your moral compass? What if it were only 12,000? Some of whom are targeted by the IDF and not simply “collateral damage” (see HERE, HERE, and HERE). How many dead children—and thousands of civilian adults—does it take for our moral alarm to go off and cause us to question whether Christians should support Israel’s war on Gaza?

As a Christian, I can’t imagine Jesus saying, “That’s just the price of fighting against evil. It’s sad, but what are you going to do? War is hell.” Or, “Yeah, but it’s all Hamas’s fault.” Or, “Hamas is using these women and children as human shields, so we must blast through the shields to get to the bad guys.” 

Christians have a biblical and moral obligation to view the war in Gaza, including its civilian death toll, in a way that reflects the life and teachings of Jesus.