In its report titled, ‘Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from Hamas the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza’, by Andrew Fox, the Henry Jackson Society has brought to light some crucial and logical aspects of how the reality on ground could be much different than what the official death toll in Gaza tells us.
As per the eye-opening report, the analysis of the Gaza Ministry of Health fatality data reveals repeated instances of men being misclassified as women. Examples include individuals with male first names, like Mohammed, being recorded as female.
This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing international sentiment and media coverage.
Further, significant discrepancies have been uncovered where adult fatalities are reclassified as children. For instance, an individual aged 22 was listed as a four-year-old and a 31-year-old was listed as an infant. Such distortions inflate the number of child casualties, which is emotionally impactful and heavily emphasised in global reporting.
These misrepresentations suggest a deliberate attempt to frame the conflict as disproportionately affecting children, undermining the credibility of the fatality data.
Data analysis also indicates that proportionally, most fatalities are men aged 15–45, contradicting claims that civilian populations are being disproportionately targeted. This age demographic aligns closely with the expected profile of combatants, further supported by spikes in deaths of men reported by family sources rather than hospitals. This evidence suggests that many fatalities classified as civilian may be combatants, a distinction omitted from official reporting.
Apart from this, despite the typical annual rate of 5,000 natural deaths in Gaza, the fatality data provides no accounting for such figures. This omission raises concerns that natural deaths, as well as deaths caused by internal violence or misfired rockets, are being included in war-related fatality counts.
Instances of cancer patients, previously registered for treatment, appearing on war fatality lists further support this assertion. Such practices inflate the reported civilian death toll, complicating accurate assessments of the conflict’s impact.
Also, analysis of media coverage reveals that only 3 percent of news stories reference combatant deaths, with outlets like the BBC, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times primarily relying on Gaza Ministry of Health figures. These figures often lack verification and fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The omission creates a skewed narrative that portrays all casualties as civilian, thus shaping public opinion and international policy based on incomplete or manipulated data. For example, more than 17,000 Hamas combatants are estimated to have been killed, yet these figures are largely excluded from global reporting.
While the ‘Gaza Ministry of Health’ is being used all pervasively as a source of ‘official numbers’ of deaths, it is noteworthy that the ministry is under the full control of Hamas. It was established by Hamas in 2007 after it took full control of the Gaza Strip following its violent clashes with the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority. Since then, Hamas has managed governmental functions in Gaza, including health care services through the Ministry of Health.
Other examples of discrepancies are how in reports from the Al-Aqsa Hospital, for instance, where the claimed number of fatalities jumped from 4,994, as per the 31 March 2024 report, to 6,608 just a week later. At the same time, the number of children jumped from 1,294 to 2,142, meaning children were responsible for 52.5 percent of the sharp increase.
In addition, there are major inconsistencies between the reports about hospital-recorded deaths and the ‘Ministry of Health records’ section of the fatality list released on 3 April 2024, which raises the question as to the real source of those records.
As a result, from April 2024, the demographic composition of fatality reports coming from ‘Ministry of Health records’ changed dramatically, while the demographics of the family notification reports remained virtually the same as before.
Further, a series of statistical anomalies in the first few months of the war appear to show an over representation of women and children in the fatality figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
On 19 October 2023, the MoH reported that there had been 3,785 cumulative fatalities in Gaza, 26 compared to 3,000 two days prior, a 785 increase. But the cumulative number of children reported killed increased by 671 on the same day, from 853 to 1,524 – meaning that the percentage of total deaths comprised of minors jumped from 28 percent to 40 percent in a two-day period.
In another example, on 5 December 2023, the MoH reported 16,248 cumulative fatalities which, compared to 15,207 reported three days earlier, on 2 December 2023, shows an increase of 1,041. But the number of newly reported women and children killed was reported to have increased by 1,353 over the same time period (628 women and 725 children).
Taken at face value, these figures would suggest the number of men killed in Gaza actually declined over those days, despite heavy combat action in Gaza.
According to the Ministry’s fatality lists, as opposed to their headline reports, men have been killed in higher rates than women. As a percentage of the total fatalities, men have been killed at significantly higher rates. There is a significant spike in the rate of male deaths (as a percentage of Gaza’s total population) between the ages of 15 and 40.
This is in line with the expected ages of combatants, suggesting that Israel has targeted Hamas fighters, not civilians. The death rate of women is almost completely static at around 0.4 percent between the ages of 0 and 60, and well below the comparative levels for men. The death rates for children are well below that of any other age group. This is concrete evidence that neither of these demographic groups have been targeted.
As per other findings, several people were wrongly recorded as children and reported as such in the monthly reports by the MoH and therefore also by international media. In addition, there has been a pattern of ages being revised downwards by one year. As identified earlier, this puts a number of listed ages at odds with ages recorded in the Palestinian Population Register. A comparison of the first 1,000 names in the October 2023 and July 2024 lists revealed several inconsistencies in the data, including eight people disappearing between lists, a duplicate on the October list and, most pertinently, over 100 people whose ages had been reduced by one year between the October and July lists.
Fatality figures for children play a prominent part in reporting of this war, but a pattern of age inconsistencies between lists casts significant doubt on these numbers. To test whether these figures, regularly quoted by the media, were reliable, we examined every fatality listed at 18 years old in the August 2024 list and compared the entry to entries in the October 2023 and February 2024 lists. In the October 2023 list, there were 117 people listed at 18 years old. Of these, 25 were listed as aged 17 in the August 2024 list. This is 21.4 percent.
An even more dramatic statistic comes from repeating the process with the February 2024 list, compared with August 2024. There were 265 names listed as 18 years old in the February list. Of these, 144 were listed as 17 years old in the August list. This is approximately 54.3 percent. The Ministry of Health’s 30 April list had 406 fatalities aged 19, male and female. 284 of these 19-year-olds, or 70 percent, were listed as 18 in the 30 June list.
In the most charitable interpretation of this data, these names were incorrectly labelled as 18-year-olds in the previous lists and reverted to their true ages in the August list. However, even if this is true, it means that the data in those previous lists released by the MoH was highly inaccurate and should never have been used uncritically by media outlets.
It casts significant doubt on the reliability of current and future MoH lists. Less charitably, this data could be interpreted as incorrectly inflating the number of 17-year-olds in official statistics, which would have the knock-on effect of inflating the number of children reported killed. This would benefit the anti-Israel messaging of Hamas and other groups. Either way, the fact that major media outlets reported these demonstrably inconsistent numbers without any question is highly concerning.
It has further been found out that global English-language media outlets have systematically failed to distinguish between civilian and combatant fatalities. This failure means that the narrative has been distorted into something that misrepresents the situation in Gaza. This affects public opinion, influences policy-making and has broader implications for international relations and conflict resolution.
For instance, TV host Fareed Zakaria told CNN audiences in April that the cost of the war was ‘35,000 civilians dying’, mistakenly presenting the total number of fatalities as civilian deaths – and including more than 10,000 militants. The CNN audience on YouTube exceeds 17 million viewers.
Another example from the wider media is an exclusive interview aired by CBS in June 2024, featuring Army Major Harrison Mann, a 13-year veteran who resigned in protest against US support for Israel’s war in Gaza. During the interview with CBS’s Jim Axelrod, Mann said, “I don’t know how you kill 35,000 civilians by accident”. CBS has more than six million viewers on YouTube.
While it is crucial to acknowledge the suffering and loss of life in Gaza, the uncritical repetition of unverified fatality figures serves to obscure the truth rather than illuminate it. The MoH’s fatality reports, in their current form, should not be treated as definitive, nor should they be used as the primary basis for international discourse on the conflict. This situation calls for a more measured approach in reporting and analysis, one that critically examines sources of information and distinguishes between legitimate and manipulated data.
Responsible reporting requires more than simply relaying numbers. It demands a critical assessment of the data, an understanding of the context and a commitment to accuracy. The international media plays a crucial role in shaping global perceptions of the conflict. Only by approaching these figures with a critical eye can the media help uncover the truth behind the war’s human cost, ensuring that the true nature of the conflict is represented in the international arena.
