The numbers game - what we know about Palestinian casualties in Gaza

As we enter into the 80th day of the war, the IDF has announced it has killed approximately 8,000 Hamas militants, or one-third of their terrorist ranks.

Given the IDF’s notification at the beginning of this month that the civilian-to-terrorist casualty rate in Gaza is 2:1 respectively, this puts the total Palestinian casualty rate today at approximately 24,000.

Given that Israel and Hamas never agree on anything, this number is surprisingly similar to the “over 20,000” casualties reported by “officials in Gaza” (i.e. Hamas) according to a recent report from BBC Verify.

Of course, Hamas never admits to any of the casualties being combatants and categorizes all of them as citizens.

It goes without saying that the loss of life of any innocent civilian on either side of the conflict is a terrible tragedy; a tragedy for which Hamas is directly responsible. Nonetheless, taking into account the very complex combat situation in Gaza, the civilian-to-terrorist death ratio is not markedly high. These are very similar ratios to World War II and the Vietnam War.

Numbers are important, particularly since pro-Hamas activists worldwide claim on nearly every platform and public debate that Israel has indiscriminately killed “tens of thousands of civilians,” or “thousands of babies.”

In a recent debate between Mohammed Hijab and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on the Piers Morgan show, Hijab, a highly influential Moslem cleric from Great Britain, argued several times that Israel has killed 100 civilians for every Hamas combatant. The audacity of an influencer like Hijab to spread such blatant lies in order to slander Israel is repulsive, and constitutes classic antisemitic blood libel.

The numbers announced by the IDF today are, at best, an educated guess. It is virtually impossible for any army to keep a daily running death toll in the midst of multifaceted urban conflict. However, based on what we know, this estimation is probably very close to the truth.

WHAT WE KNOW

We know that Hamas arms thousands of children, the vast majority of whom are teenage minors under the age of 18 who carry weapons, and fire at our soldiers, like the hundreds who were documented participating in the massacre of October 7.

We know that Hamas also arms women who carry weapons and explosives, and fire at our civilians and soldiers.

We know that all Hamas militants are always dressed in civilian clothing and not uniforms. It is important to note that when a civilian-dressed militant is aiming and RPG at an Israeli soldier, there is no time to ascertain their age or gender before killing them and neutralizing the threat.

We know that Hamas never admits to any of its terrorists being killed. All deaths reported by it are “civilian” deaths.

We know that Hamas is not a credible source about anything. Hamas blamed Israel several times for deaths it was actually responsible for, such as bombing the al-Ahli Hospital, or the killing of two Christian ladies on the Gaza church compound, both of which were later disproven with hard evidence.

Likewise, Pro-Hamas online activists, such as the “Electric Intifada” website have gone as far as to claim that the vast majority of Israelis killed on Oct. 7 were killed by indiscriminate bombing of the IDF, even though there is vast and compelling video evidence, taken from the body cameras terrorists, which proves the exact opposite.

We know that Hamas, which tends to lie, has a big incentive to exaggerate numbers of deaths in general, and numbers of “women and children” casualties, specifically.

We know that the numbers that Hamas reports are then quoted by Al Jazeera, as if they are gospel truth, thereby misinforming Arabic speakers around the world, causing them to be outraged and take to the streets.

We know that the Al Jazeera network is not an objective source because it is hosted and funded by the government of Qatar, the same entity which hosts and funds the senior leadership of Hamas.

WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW

Nobody really knows the exact numbers of people killed to date in Gaza, and keeping an exact death toll in the midst any war is all but impossible, but I believe we can assume that actual statistics are probably much closer to those claimed by Israel than any other assertions out there.

Israel, unlike the Palestinians in Gaza, has a strong independent media that constantly fact-checks, criticizes and holds its own government to a strong standard of truth.

Once the dust settles, we will likely discover that its estimation of casualties is close to the actual facts on the ground.