During the first months of the war in Gaza, deaths were counted through trusted health system that, in the years beforehand, had won the trust of human rights groups, the UN and the World Health Organisation. But amid repeated Israeli attacks on hospitals and chronic fuel shortages, this system has now effectively collapsed.
Of the eight major hospitals responsible for collating morgue data, just three are still providing information to the health ministry.
Gaza Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry says 32,916 Palestinians have been killed since the war began.
Missing are the names of 11,593 people who the ministry says have been killed, but whose identities it has been unable to confirm.
As Gaza’s health system has collapsed, the share of unidentified deaths has grown – making up 81% of additions to the total number of fatalities in March, up from 69% in January.
