BBC Verify examines the evidence on combatant deaths, as concern grows about the scale of civilian killing.

The toll of at least 30,035 killed, from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, has previously been described as trustworthy by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional emergency director Richard Brennan.

The WHO says the ministry has “good capacity in data collection” and its previous reporting has been credible and “well developed”.

But its overall tally of those killed does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The Gaza authorities’ last demographic breakdown from 29 February indicated more than 70% of those killed had been women and children.

  • ArbitraryValueEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    If you accept the Hamas claim that

    The Gaza authorities’ last demographic breakdown from 29 February indicated more than 70% of those killed had been women and children.

    but you also think that Israel is getting its 2:1 value by counting corpses rather than by just making it up, that would imply that they’re counting all dead men (and 5% of dead women and children) as Hamas fighters.

    However, given that approximately half of the population of Gaza is under 18, 70% would imply that over 93% of Palestinian casualties are civilians (based on the assumption that adult men make up 100% of Hamas fighters but only 25% of the civilian population). That’s 14 civilians killed for every fighter, more than twice as bad as the Russian siege of Mariupol. I don’t believe this because (1) it doesn’t correspond to the level of destruction we’re seeing, (2) I think Biden would act very differently if it were true, and (3) Hamas has a great deal of motivation to lie.

    If Israel were killing literally everyone, women and children would be 75% of the dead. This is what Hamas is saying when they say “more than 70%”. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous but it’s what some people apparently believe and what the Western media reports uncritically.

    Note that if if we accept the 2:1 casualty ratio Israel claims but believe they’re counting dead Hamas fighters completely accurately, that would mean 50% of casualties would be women and children and 17% of the casualties would be civilian men. If we think Israel is also exaggerating, then 7500 Hamas fighters killed, a 3:1 casualty ratio (pretty bad but not necessarily unjustifiable) would mean 56% of the casualties would be women and children and 19% would be civilian men. So I think the true fraction of women and children among the dead is somewhere between 50% and 56%.