The Period of High Gaza Deaths is Long Over
Deaths in Gaza have slowed dramatically. Media is not reporting it.
Deeper dives into data shows that Gazan deaths are relatively low at this point, that Hamas mis-states casualty data, and that now it is almost all male militants who are being killed in Gaza, vs innocent women and children.
The data
The Intercept analyzed three data sets: hospital recorded deaths, Hamas claimed deaths, and UNWRA staff deaths and found three elements of arguably good news.
First, the overall death rate is now rather low, compared to the initial weeks and even months of the Gaza war.
Second and unsurprisingly, Hamas lies about death counts.
Third, Hamas particularly lies about women and child deaths which are a proxy for civilian deaths. The actual numbers show far higher rates of males being killed (for some months now), suggesting that Hamas militants are being successfully and precisely targeted.
[T]he death rates for women and children are particularly low, indicating that male militants are now being targeted more effectively by Israel.
The data set shows how Hamas claims did match both hospital-reported and UNWRA female per-person death rates until about mid-November (a month into the war) but then diverged.
They perform other analyses as well to establish that the deaths per-person are representative across time, and across regions in Gaza, so the more accurate UNWRA fatality counts are a good proxy for (accurate) overall death counts.
Interpretations
The first thing that jumps out is that Hamas misrepresents death counts, as seen in the diverging lines below.
The lighter red line for data from the Hamas Ministry of Health (MOH) diverges, likely when Hamas embraced new reporting mechanisms of media and web-submitted data rather than reporting hospital data.
Low death rates
The second item to see is the (real) death rate itself, represented by the remarkable flatness of the more accurate, dark red line after about mid-November 2023.
I have written that there was never a “genocide” in Gaza, even early on; this data shows there is most definitely no genocide ongoing today.
(That is not to say that this war, or any war, is not horrible and incomprehensible. Hamas should not have started it, and perhaps Israel could have brought the death tolls down earlier. It’s hard to say.)
Finally, the death rates for women and children are particularly low, indicating that male militants are now being targeted more effectively by Israel. The data above separates out female UNWRA staff deaths to determine gender differences, and since that tracks reliable data well, that is used to extrapolate.
Below is another analysis from The Washington Institute with per-month data broken out by gender through March to better illustrate Israel’s success in targeting male militants:
This chart shows a 10x reduction even in adult male deaths, but a remarkable 100x reduction in child deaths, and 50x in female deaths.
The Intercept also infers, using the more accurate data, that total Gaza deaths are actually about 18,000 so far, not 32,000.
Political implications
Politically, this is typical of the anti-Israel misinformation machine, and media embrace of the resulting narrative, in four ways:
- Collective punishment demanded towards Israel. If stopping the war is not going to save (very many) lives at this point, why do it? Anti-Israel activists want Israel to pay for claimed excesses during the first month of the war, despite a withdrawal now promising little practical benefit.
- Media bias. As always, the most salient facts are not reported if they contradict a dominant anti-Israeli narrative. Child casualties are down 100x (10,000%). Female deaths down 50x. Overall death rates now relatively low. How is this not news?
- An historic narrative used to justify anti-Israel policy today. Higher deaths were at least seven months ago, but that narrative is still used to demand that Israel cease all military operations today and allow Hamas to remain in power.
- “Genocide” blood libel. Antisemitic activists, in particular, delight in calling the Jews “Nazis” and saying they commit “genocide.” The reality of moderation, targeted attacks and self defense becomes clear in the lower, male-focused casualty data that is there if we only look at it.
It’s even better than this (less bad)
Hamas and their fellow travelers kill people themselves, both intentionally and by accident, and then blame Israel.
We know this from rare, reliable data points, such as when a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket fell in a hospital parking lot on October 17th, killing perhaps 200 people, and Hamas rushed to claim that Israel had bombed the hospital and killed over 400 people.
To my knowledge, Hamas has NEVER acknowledged anyone they killed, or removed any Hamas victims from casualty counts. Unfortunately, it is difficult or impossible to quantify Hamas killing of their own people to correct the numbers.
No angels in this fight
War is hell, and neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis — and most certainly not Hamas — are completely innocent. But Israel’s miltiary activity is currently precise and restrained, and the benefit of a Hamas defeat to all parties, including the Palestinians and the greater cause of peace, will only be attained if Israel stays the course to remove Hamas from power in Gaza.
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