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LONDON: Since October 2023, Israel has been waging two parallel wars in Gaza: One, to destroy Hamas and rescue its hostages; the other, a propaganda campaign designed to discredit the tally of civilian fatalities issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health.

However, as new independent research suggests, far from exaggerating the number of deaths since Israel began its retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, the Gaza Ministry of Health appears to have been significantly underestimating them.

According to the latest tally from the Ministry of Health, the total number of Palestinians killed since the war began is now approaching 55,000, with a further 126,000 injured.

A paper published by a team of researchers in the US, UK, Norway and Belgium, working in collaboration with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Gaza, shows the death toll is likely far higher.

As of January 5 this year, it found the total number of violent deaths over the course of the conflict had already reached 75,200.

This figure, derived independently of the Ministry of Health, is based on an exhaustive household survey, which revealed another disturbing statistic about the war in Gaza.

In addition to the 75,200 violent deaths, the survey highlighted a further 8,540 non-violent deaths caused by indirect factors, including disease, hunger, and loss of access to medical treatment and medication.

That brings the total number of deaths resulting from the war in Gaza since October 2023 to 83,740.

“Our estimate for the number of violent deaths far exceeds the figures from the Ministry of Health,” said Michael Spagat, a professor of economics at Royal Holloway College, University of London, the lead author of the study and chairman of the board of trustees of the UK charity Every Casualty Counts.

“The implication of this is that the ministry has not been exaggerating the number of violent deaths.”

The ministry has also been accused of falsifying the number of children killed in Israeli attacks. But “the demographics of the ministry’s figures seem to be about right,” said Spagat.

“The proportion of women, elderly, and children among the dead in its figures is consistent with what we found.”

The new research estimates that 56 percent of those killed between October 2023 and January this year — 42,200 of the total 75,200 victims — were either women, children, or those aged over 65.

More than half of these (22,800) were children under the age of 18, meaning that almost one in three of those killed in Gaza up to January this year was a child.

The Gaza Mortality Survey, which in line with standard academic procedure received ethical pre-approval from the University of London and obtained informed consent from each respondent, was conducted between Dec. 30, 2024, and Jan. 5, 2025.

Ten two-person teams from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, tracked by GPS and real-time monitoring, conducted face-to-face questionnaire-based interviews, which were recorded on tablets and phones, and uploaded data instantly to a secure central server.

The survey teams visited a sample of 2,000 households, representative of prewar Gaza, and collected information about the “vital status” of 9,729 household members and their newborn children ­­— including whether they were alive or dead and, if dead, how they had died.

The survey, said Spagat, “would have been impossible without the support of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

“First of all, we would not have been let into Gaza, but our partner was already there. They have experienced survey researchers in Gaza, and they were the ones who conducted the interviews.

“Also crucial was that this organization has been tracking population movements since the war began. If we were doing a survey in Gaza under stable conditions, we would have a list of where people are, based on the last census. But there has been so much displacement the census-based list was of limited value.”

Instead, because it has been tracking population movements throughout the war, the PCPSR was able to identify 200 sample sites sheltering internally displaced people which reflected the distribution of pre-2023 populations, including in the now inaccessible areas of northern Gaza, Gaza City, and Rafah.

As with all such research, all the numbers come with a cautionary “confidence interval” — a margin of error that shows the possible range of figures, allowing for under- and overestimation. For the total number of violent deaths estimated by the survey, this gives a range of between 63,600 and 86,800.

“Even the lowest figure is a big number, and about 16,000 above the comparable Ministry of Health figure at the time of the survey,” said Spagat.

“We have tried to draw conclusions that we are quite confident won’t get overturned by further research, and one of our conclusions is that the Ministry of Health is not capturing all of the deaths in Gaza and that there is a substantial degree of undercount there.”

He added: “Our estimate for the number of children killed (22,800) is shockingly high, and well above the Ministry of Health figure.”

Taking into account the survey’s confidence interval, the number of child deaths could range from a low of 16,700 to as many as 28,800. And at either end of that scale, said Spagat, “that is an awful lot of children.”

It is, he said, “possible that the true number of total violent deaths is even below the bottom of our confidence interval, but it’s extremely unlikely to be so far below it that it would overturn our conclusion that the Ministry of Health is not capturing all of the deaths.”

He is anxious that the survey’s conclusions should in no way be seen as a criticism of the Ministry of Health, “which has had a lot on its plate.”

In fact, although the ministry’s tally is not fully comprehensive — it has, for instance, yet to compile or release figures for non-violent war-related deaths, which this survey has revealed for the first time — Spagat said its work should be highly commended.

Despite the constant criticism by Israel and its supporters, the work it is doing, under extreme conditions, “is exceptionally transparent,” he said.

“For each person they’re saying is dead, they’re listing a name and they’re listing a national ID number, a sex, and age.”

The first list of the dead was released by the ministry in October last year, in response to accusations that it was making up the numbers killed by Israel.

One factor that has been widely overlooked by critics of the ministry’s figures is the significance of the ID numbers.

“It’s the Israelis who maintain the population register for the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, so at a minimum, they can take that list and they can check to verify that everyone listed on it is a real person,” said Spagat.

“They must have done some checking like this, and I’ve got to believe that if the Ministry of Health was just making up names Israel would have made that known.”

Ultimately, Spagat believes, the lists being compiled by Gaza’s Ministry of Health “will serve as a memorial for the people who are killed in a way that just recording a number can’t. By listing people individually, you are recording some semblance of who they were as human beings.”

The model for this, he said, was the Kosovo Memory Book, an exhaustive record of all those killed, missing, or disappeared in the fighting between 1998 and 2000, compiled by the Humanitarian Law Center in Kosovo.

This record, say its authors, “calls everyone to pause in front of it, to read each name and find out who these people were and how they died. It urges people to remember people.”

In time, it adds, “when the data on the fate of those who are still missing are finally obtained …  the Kosovo Memory Book will have become the most reliable witness to our recent past.”

When peace finally comes to Gaza, said Spagat, “I hope there will be funding for research on this scale (based) on the really good foundations being laid by the Ministry of Health.”