A new study published in the medical journal The Lancet Global Health shows that more than 75,000 Palestinians were killed during the first 15 months of the Israeli military offensive on Gaza, a figure significantly higher than the 49,000 reported by health officials in the Gaza Strip at the time.
The peer-reviewed study, published Wednesday, concluded that women, children, and the elderly accounted for approximately 56.2 percent of the violence-related deaths in Gaza during that period, a percentage that closely matches reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The fieldwork was conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, headed by Khalil Shikaki, who has been conducting public opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza for decades. The lead author is Michael Spaggett, a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.
According to the study’s authors, this is the first independent population-based survey of deaths in the Gaza Strip. The survey included 2,000 Palestinian households over seven days, beginning on December 30, 2024.
The authors wrote, “The combined evidence suggests that by January 5, 2025, between three and four percent of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed as a result of violence, and that there had been a significant number of deaths not directly related to violence but indirectly caused by the conflict.”
The death toll in Gaza has been hotly disputed since the start of the Israeli offensive following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2013. Gaza health authorities, whose figures have long been considered reliable by the United Nations, report that more than 72,000 people have been killed. They estimate that thousands remain trapped under the rubble but do not include these figures in their official count.
