The Truth Behind the Gaza Casualty Figures

An independent analysis group called Honest Reporting has revealed that the Gaza Health Ministry, under Hamas, has made adjustments to its casualty list, covertly omitting thousands of names without any justification. Notably, this revised list has also excluded over a thousand children, significantly altering the previously presented demographic ratios that critics of Israeli military actions had quickly highlighted.

This considerable revision — largely ignored by major news outlets — underscores a pervasive issue: the uncritical acceptance of suspect statistics used to evaluate the legality and morality of military actions, particularly in Gaza.

Despite the evident political oversight and dubious methodology behind Hamas’s casualty figures, political representatives and most international media have cited statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) without skepticism or qualification.

In the debate surrounding the ongoing conflict in Gaza, casualty reporting has emerged as a focal point of legal and ethical discourse. Much of the scrutiny has been directed at the figures disseminated by the GHM, which operates under Hamas — a group designated as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.

However, there is alarmingly little examination regarding the collection, verification, and dissemination of these statistics. As discussed in my research on urban warfare and casualty ratios, accounting for casualties in active combat, especially in densely populated urban areas, is inherently challenging, often inaccurate, and susceptible to manipulation.

A recent investigative report by the Henry Jackson Society, titled “Questionable Counting“ highlights significant flaws in the GHM’s casualty data. The ministry reportedly gathers figures from a fragmented network of hospital records, unverified clinic reports, family contributions, and a Google Share Drive — rarely cross-referenced for validation.

In the tumult of ongoing conflict, such methods are not only unreliable — they are vulnerable to political exploitation. These concerns were reiterated in an earlier investigation by the Associated Press, which reported numerous inconsistencies in GHM’s statistics, such as duplicated names, mismatched genders, and discrepancies in ages.

This trend reveals a worrisome phenomenon: the global community has come to accept casualty figures from Hamas-controlled institutions as almost instant credibility. Yet, it is unreasonable to assume that any organization — particularly one operating under the pressure of a terrorist agenda — can generate precise, separate casualty data just minutes or hours following an event. Such expectations disregard the intrinsic chaos of warfare.

For perspective, consider other recent urban conflicts. During the Battle of Mosul from 2016 to 2017 — one of the most analyzed urban military operations in recent history — it took months, if not years, to achieve consensus on civilian and combatant death estimates. Despite international oversight and post-conflict assessments, the chaotic nature of urban warfare rendered real-time casualty tracking virtually impossible.

Credible media sources and US government officials, including those from the National Security Council, have acknowledged that GHM numbers often blur the lines between combatants and civilians, lacking essential context regarding the circumstances leading to individuals’ deaths. This opacity starkly contrasts with the moral and legal implications frequently assigned to these statistics by international entities and advocacy groups.

In my studies on urban warfare, I emphasize that calculating accurate casualty ratios during or immediately after conflict is profoundly challenging. In urban settings, civilians, combatants, and infrastructure are closely intermingled. Combatants often utilize civilian locations and communities as shields.

The tactical dynamics in these scenarios complicate targeting, heighten risks, and obscure accountability.

Importantly, military law does not mandate armed forces to disclose casualty tallies as evidence of lawful conduct. The principle of proportionality in warfare laws requires commanders to evaluate the anticipated military benefit of a strike against the expected civilian risk prior to executing an operation.

The legality of military actions should not be assessed based on post-event casualty figures — particularly when such numbers come from non-transparent, politically skewed organizations.

The increasing trend of utilizing unverifiable or distorted casualty statistics to make moral or legal assertions about military conduct misrepresents the intended function of laws governing warfare. Casualty figures, especially those deriving from entities like Hamas, should not form the basis for international evaluations. Warfare is not merely a numerical contest.

Compliance with the law in warfare must be appraised based on the intention of the military action taken, the precautions exercised, the proportionality assessments made during planning, and the efforts undertaken to minimize civilian casualties — not on manipulated or incomplete casualty reports.

Until casualty counts are validated through independent and transparent methods, they should not be referenced to reach definitive conclusions regarding the legality or morality of military operations.

The global community must abandon the practice of utilizing raw figures — particularly those sourced from biased or obscure entities — as shortcuts for moral and legal determinations.

This is not how warfare laws function, nor is it how warfare itself operates. Analysts, journalists, policymakers, and the general public must insist on a higher level of rigor and context before allowing questionable information to influence international perceptions and policy.

The recent findings by Honest Reporting, coupled with results from other inquiries, affirm what many have long suspected: the casualty figures frequently cited to criticize Israeli actions in Gaza are not only flawed, but also fundamentally unreliable and politically manipulated.

John Spencer is the chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute and co-director of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project.