A new report from the medical journal The Lancet estimates that as many as 598,000 Palestinians could die as a result of Israel’s attacks on Gaza if the war were to end today.
The Gaza Health Ministry has reported just shy of 38,000 deaths since the war began, but there are numerous obstacles facing those trying to keep count, and the death toll continues to rise.
The Lancet argues that it is important to also consider indirect deaths in the tally. The numbers that are typically reported include those who have died in attacks such as airstrikes, but there are even more Palestinians who are dying in Gaza every day due to starvation and other problems who would have likely otherwise lived had the war not taken place.
These indirect deaths could continue well into the future due to the spread of disease, severe water and food shortages, and highly damaged healthcare infrastructure.
“In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza,” the journal notes.
This “conservative” estimate would equate to nearly 9% of the Gaza population. However, a more cynical calculation using the upper estimate of 15 indirect deaths for every direct death would place the death toll at 598,336, which represents 26% of the Gazan population.
The journal also drew attention to the challenges involved in accurately counting deaths, especially as the war continues. Many bodies are buried beneath the rubble of buildings and homes that were bombed by Israel, and they have not all been recovered and identified. Meanwhile, the difficulties involved in identifying certain bodies has led the ministry to report identified deaths, where they know the victim’s name, in a separate category from unidentified deaths.
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Current death toll figures are likely a significant underestimate
The figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry are based on reports by hospital officials, which means they only include bodies of the dead brought to hospitals and injured individuals who died while under the care of a hospital. The fact that many of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer functioning is only adding to the chaos.
It’s easy to see how the official figures could be a dramatic underestimate of what is really happening there. In late February, the United Nations estimated that more than a third of the buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed by bombing and 10,000 bodies could be buried under the rubble. An NGO that tracked deaths during the 2003 war in Iraq, Airwars, determined that not all of the identifiable victims have been included in the list provided by the Gaza Health Ministry.
The study’s authors also address accusations that the Gaza Health Ministry has a vested interest in inflating the numbers. They note that Israeli intelligence and international rights organizations have accepted their figures as accurate, and studies have not shown any evidence they are inflating the numbers. As the authors of the current study note, the number is far more likely to be an underestimate than an overestimate.
Sadly, the deliberate destruction of the infrastructure in Gaza needed to support human life in every respect, from food, water and shelter to sewage, sanitation and healthcare, means that the suffering in Gaza is far from over, and the death toll is going to continue to climb.
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