Comprehensive Study Finds Gaza (Hamas) Health Ministry “Civilian” Death Claims “Inflated and Misleading”

Comprehensive Study Finds Gaza (Hamas) Health Ministry “Civilian” Death Claims “Inflated and Misleading”

In many ways, the war against Israel is a war against truth. The lies of the anti-Israel movement, be it in Gaza or on campuses, are relentless and pervasive. From the false claim that the Arabs of the British Mandate of Palestine were indigenous, to the denial of Jewish history in the area, to the attempt to misappropriate Jewish history, to the false claims of Apartheid and Genocide – it’s lie upon lie upon lie in the effort to destroy Israel.

Remember how we heard endlessly that Gaza was “the world’s largest open air prison” and a “concentration camp”? Well after Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Gaza ‘civilians’ committed the October 7 Massacre and mass kidnapping, and Israel retaliated, Gazans and ‘pro-Palestinians’ started posting videos of how great it used to be in Gaza.

The claim that Gaza was the world’s largest open air prison always was a fantastical lie perpetrated by the anti-Israel movement, academia, and the media. https://t.co/w5sJlee78Q

— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) December 14, 2024

The claims about life in Gaza pre-October 7 were the pretext to justify the attempted Genocide of Israeli Jews by Palestinians. But it was just a lie.

The military war in Gaza is not over, but Hamas and Islamic Jihad are so severely diminished that only the Biden administration holding Israel back has allowed those groups to survive at all.

The current battlefront is the attempt to use international organizations like the ICJ and ICC, and groups like Amnesty International, to isolate and damage Israel by perverting and manipulating international law concepts to create definitions of ‘Genocide’ that only are applied to Israel. The international media is the cheering section.

Key in all of this is the claim that Israel deliberately kills civilians, and the civilian body count is their primary proof. Statistics generated by the Gaza Health Ministry, which is wholly controlled by Hamas, are accepted and repeated as if coming from a legitimate neutral source.

There is no question that there have been substantial civilian deaths, a result of Hamas firing rockets and fighting among, in tunnels under, and inside civilian locations, even humanitarian zones created by Israel for civilian safety. I think it’s safe to say there may never been any other modern battlezone where an armed force (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) have so thoroughly interwoven themselves into a supportive civilian population and structures for the very purpose of using civilians as human shields, and then weaponizing the civilian deaths for an international propaganda war.

Andrew Fox of the Henry Jackson Society in London has spearheaded an effort to examine the Gaza Health Ministry figures, and the result is that the health ministry numbers are completely unreliable.

Telegraph article on my report is out.

Please note:

This report doesn’t give a definitive number. It simply points out the appalling methodological flaws and errors in the data.

Bottom line: Hamas’ numbers are completely unreliable, yet the world’s media has platformed one… pic.twitter.com/OyphoL2RVb

— Andrew Fox (@Mr_Andrew_Fox) December 14, 2024

An article in the UK Telegraph explains the core findings:

The number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict has been inflated to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people, a report claims.

Researchers accuse the Gaza ministry of health of overstating casualty data by including natural deaths, failing to differentiate between civilian and combat casualties and over-reporting the numbers of women and children killed.

The study by the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, claims the figures have been manipulated by the Hamas-run authorities in Gaza for propaganda purposes, with international media outlets happy to repeat them uncritically…..

The report found numerous statistical anomalies and inaccuracies. Researchers say that around 5,000 natural deaths, which would have happened even without the conflict, appear to have been added to the list of casualties, including cancer patients who later appeared on lists of those still receiving hospital treatment….

Researchers, who established that the majority of those killed were men aged 15-45, said they found a pattern of victims’ ages being revised downwards by at least one year when compared to data on the Palestinian Population Register in an apparent attempt to inflate the number of children recorded as killed.

“This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing sentiment and media coverage,” said Andrew Fox, the report’s author.

The Henry Jackson Society said the casualty figures also failed to distinguish between Gazans killed by the IDF and those killed by misfired Hamas rockets or during the distribution of food aid.

This graph from @Mr_Andrew_Fox's report destroys the claim that Israel targets civilians.

Hamas' entire battleplan consisted of trying to get their own women and children killed, presenting their corpses to a waiting world—primed by 2,000 of clerical Jew-hate to crave evidence… pic.twitter.com/WyNrZ30dd0

— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) December 14, 2024

You can read the  full report here. Here are short excerpts, but read the whole thing.

This report also shows that the methodology of data collection by the Ministry of Health is not scientifically valid, and that its reports from previous conflicts have also concealed combatant deaths.

This fatality analysis recognises the immense toll of the war on Palestinians in Gaza. Even as fatalities are discussed as quantifiable numbers, it is important to remember that innocent people are suffering, and each number represents a human life. Many of those lives were innocent people caught in the middle of a brutal war started by Hamas on 7 October. The suffering, death and destruction are very real for actual human beings.

An understanding of the Gaza fatality data is critical in understanding the conduct of the war by the Israel Defense Forces and the State of Israel’s leadership. International humanitarian law does not require that no harm happen to civilians. Rather, it demands that parties to war use their best efforts to mitigate harm to civilians. All parties to a war are required to adhere to certain rules of war. As the United Nations frequently posits: “even war has rules”. 4 When one party in a war disregards the rules, the consequences do not convict the other party or prevent them from prosecuting the war. 5

Global media outlets have, understandably, focused on the number of deaths in Gaza as a lens of critique of Israeli operations. Many media outlets give the proviso that the Gaza Ministry of Health is Hamas-run, but few give the same level of attention to IDF reports of the numbers of fighters killed as part of the overall Israeli fatality total. Nor do media outlets give the methodology, reporting or content of the lists of names the scrutiny they deserve.

A definitive figure of fatalities is impossible, due to the lack of transparency from the MoH, a general lack of access to the Palestinian Population Registry and the challenges of counting militants killed in combat. However, this report finds numerous errors that cannot be explained by a lack of access to the Ministry of Health computer network that went offline in November 2023.

We have identified distortion of statistics, misreporting of natural deaths, deaths from before the war started and a high likelihood of combatant deaths being included on the list. This report also challenges the assumption that MoH fatality reports from previous conflicts are reliable and reveals evidence of efforts to hide militant fatalities. We also identify critical differences in the demographic breakdowns reported by the MoH and the Hamas Government Media Office.

Here are the Key Findings:

Men listed as women to inflate female fatalities. Analysis of Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) fatality data reveals repeated instances of men being misclassified as women. Examples include individuals with male first names (e.g. Mohammed) being recorded as female. This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing international sentiment and media coverage.

Adults registered as children. Significant discrepancies have been uncovered where adult fatalities are reclassified as children. For instance, an individual aged 22 was listed as a four year-old and a 31-year-old was listed as an infant. Such distortions inflate the number of child casualties, which is emotionally impactful and heavily emphasised in global reporting. These misrepresentations suggest a deliberate attempt to frame the conflict as disproportionately affecting children, undermining the credibility of the fatality data.

Disproportionate deaths of fighting-age men. Data analysis indicates that most fatalities are men aged 15–45, contradicting claims that civilian populations are being disproportionately targeted. This age demographic aligns closely with the expected profile of combatants, further supported by spikes in deaths of men reported by family sources rather than hospitals. This evidence suggests that many fatalities classified as civilian may be combatants, a distinction omitted from official reporting.

Inclusion of natural deaths in reporting. Despite the typical annual rate of 5,000 natural deaths in Gaza, the fatality data provides no accounting for such figures. This omission raises concerns that natural deaths, as well as deaths caused by internal violence or misfired rockets, are being included in war-related fatality counts. Instances of cancer patients, previously registered for treatment, appearing on war fatality lists further support this assertion. Such practices inflate the reported civilian death toll, complicating accurate assessments of the conflict’s impact.

Media underreporting of combatant deaths. Analysis of media coverage reveals that only 3% of news stories reference combatant deaths, with outlets like the BBC, CNN, Reuters and The New York Times primarily relying on Gaza Ministry of Health figures. These figures often lack verification and fail to distinguish between combatants and civilians. The omission creates a skewed narrative that portrays all casualties as civilian, thus shaping public opinion and international policy based on incomplete or manipulated data. For example, more than 17,000 Hamas combatants are estimated to have been killed, yet these figures are largely excluded from global reporting.

The report concludes, in part:

Our investigation into the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health’s fatality reports during the conflict reveals widespread inaccuracies and distortion in the data collection process.

These distortions primarily result from flawed methodologies, including reliance on media reports and incomplete family submissions and the inclusion of non-conflict-related deaths such as natural causes and accidental fatalities. The MoH, operating under Hamas, the perpetrators of the 7 October massacre in Israel, has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.

This distortion of data not only creates a misleading picture of the conflict but also raises significant concerns about the credibility of the numbers being reported across the world.

The global media’s uncritical acceptance and dissemination of these unreliable figures has compounded the issue, shaping public opinion and international discourse on the conflict in ways that may not reflect the reality on the ground. Many media outlets fail to scrutinise the sources of the fatality data, often presenting the MoH figures as authoritative without question.

This has led to a narrative where the IDF is portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians, while the actual numbers suggest a significant proportion of the dead are combatants. This lack of transparency and clear attempts to inflate the civilian death toll further erode the credibility of the reporting.

Our investigation found numerous statistical anomalies in the MoH’s fatality lists, including significant daily increases in the reported deaths of women and children that are mathematically impossible. Furthermore, the inclusion of natural deaths in war-related fatality counts, the erroneous categorisation of men as women and children, and the failure to account for deaths caused by internal Palestinian violence or misfired rockets from Gaza have all contributed to inflated and misleading numbers.

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