Independent estimate of Gaza deaths is higher than official figures

Around 75,000 people in the Gaza Strip – 3.6 per cent of the population – died from violent causes between 7 October 2023 and 5 January 2025, according to an independent study based on a household survey. That is higher than the estimate of 46,000 violent deaths during this period by Gaza’s health ministry.

The study also estimates that there were nearly 9000 more non-violent deaths during this period than would normally be expected in the Gaza Strip. This is the first ever estimate of the indirect deaths due to the war in the region that began in October 2023.

The study is based on interviews with 2000 randomly selected households, with people asked to list all members of the household before the war and then the current situation. “We actually were in the field, and we collected data straight from the population,” says Debarati Guha-Sapir at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

While the team was unable to access some areas due to ongoing fighting and Israeli evacuation orders, this gap would likely lead to underestimation rather than overestimation, the researchers think.

Guha-Sapir says Gaza’s health ministry has stringent criteria for counting deaths. For instance, it does not count deaths where no bodies have been found, such as people who have been buried in tunnels. So she thinks her team’s estimate is closer to the true number.

Another independent study published in February concluded that the death toll up to 24 June 2024 was higher than the official numbers by a similar proportion. However, the sources used in that study included an online survey and social media obituaries, so Guha-Sapir thinks her team’s approach is more reliable.

Francesco Checchi at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, whose team carried out the February study, disagrees. “The survey isn’t necessarily more accurate than our study,” he says. But Guha-Sapir’s study is more up to date, and also includes indirect deaths, says Checchi. “As such, it presents a more complete picture of mortality.”

The estimate of around 9000 indirect deaths as a result of the war is lower than some previous suggestions. In fact, in a letter in The Lancet in 2024, three researchers claimed on the basis of what has happened in other conflicts that there might be four indirect deaths for every direct death in Gaza, and thus that the death toll at that time could be as high as 186,000.

But that ratio of indirect deaths to direct ones has been seen only in countries such as Sudan where there was extreme poverty and poor healthcare before conflicts began, says Guha-Sapir. It’s a mistake to apply it to Gaza, where the situation was different than that of Sudan before the war began, she says.

However, if the conflict continues, this could yet change. “As conditions deteriorate, nonviolent deaths may soon rise rapidly,” says team member Michael Spagat at Royal Holloway University of London.