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Raw data: The death toll in Gaza

Published on 52 Comments on Raw data: The death toll in Gaza

This is according to the Gaza Ministry of Health through November 10th and the Government Media Office after November 22:

Since the beginning of November Israel has been killing a very steady 300 Palestinians per day.

52 thoughts on “Raw data: The death toll in Gaza”

  1. Jonshine

    My guess is that the siege and evacuation of al-shifa hospital and other general displacement has crippled the ability of the health ministry to produce figures with the level of detail of October and early November.

    And even those are only confirmed deaths, by the time the rubble is dug though, I'd be surprised if the total death toll of Israel's assault wasn't 1.5 - 3 times higher.

    1. ruralhobo

      Quite so. But the Gaza Health Ministry, being Palestinian, cannot give estimates because nobody would believe them. Even its confirmed list, with names and identity numbers, was not believed by Biden, so imagine if they took account of people under rubble or otherwise missing and probably dead.

      Israel overestimated its own dead on Oct 7th by 200 and nobody was mad. That wasn't deliberate or nefarious, just ordinary fog-of-war uncertainty. But it says something that Palestinians in their much bigger fog have to provide a name and details for every casualty they count.

    2. paul.murphy

      By the "health ministry", you mean Hamas. That's who is giving these numbers that you cite as if they are facts. The terrorist group that runs Gaza.

      1. TheMelancholyDonkey

        Indeed. That said, independent verification in earlier wars has shown that the Ministry of Health's figures during earlier campaigns were broadly accurate, no matter what we think of Hamas.

        1. painedumonde

          Even Israeli numbers are close to the Ministry. I think the reticence comes from the shame and disbelief in the shocking evidence that civilians are targeted.

          1. paul.murphy

            Targeted? Are you serious? If Israel wanted to target civilians there would be 2.3 million casualties, not ~10,000. They are targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields.

            1. KenSchulz

              [The IDF] are targeting terrorists who use civilians as human shields

              That is not sufficient to justify Israeli actions. By international laws and conventions, the value of the military objective must justify the risk to civilians, and the expected civilian casualties must be proportionate to the military advantage.

          2. MF

            Given that Israel's military objective is the rescue of 250 hostages, mostly civilian, many of them women and children, I think the number of Palestinian civilians killed is disproportionately low compared to the value of the objective.

    3. tango

      Speaking of Al-Shifa, I recall an article in this blog a few days back where Kevin expressed skepticism about Israeli claims/evidence about Hamas' use of the place for military purposes. The broad agreement of the vocal critics of Israel who post so many comments on this site was that it was all Israeli propaganda, Israel lies, etc.

      Well, the Israelis put forward some pretty reasonable evidence since then. Anyone care to admit that... maybe the Israelis WERE NOT liars? (I suspect that no, this will not happen because the critics will ALWAYS find a way to find fault with any evidence that casts doubt on their conclusions.)

      1. TheMelancholyDonkey

        The only evidence I've seen is that there are tunnels and chambers under the hospital. This doesn't constitute anything resembling evidence of a Hamas command post, since it's also become public knowledge that the Israelis dug tunnels and chambers under the hospital back in the 1980s.

        I have yet to see anything resembling actual evidence.

      2. Lon Becker

        The reason you probably won't get the apology you want is that the evidence put forward has been decidedly unimpressive. There have been a small number of weapons found. There is a tunnel under the hospital with a kitchen, but the newspaper report I saw claimed that the kitchen appeared not to have been recently used.

        Did you see the odd video of Ehud Barak on CNN talking about the tunnels? He claims that the Israelis built the tunnel. Christine Amanpour is so taken aback that she gives him a chance to correct what she assumes is his mistake, but he repeats that his understanding was that the tunnel was built back when Israel controlled Gaza apparently for storage. You should try to find that interview because I admit I didn't believe Barak actually said that until I saw the video of him saying it.

        Note that if that is true, then not only are the existence of tunnels not evidence that they Hamas was actively using the hospital for command and control, but Israel would have to know that it is not evidence despite presenting it as it is. Of course Barak could be wrong, and even if Israel built the tunnels Hamas could be using them. But the evidence presented by Israel would be incredibly weak (and the dishonestly level incredibly high).

        Of course given that Hamas has so little command and control it is possible that Hamas simply moved it all before Israel got there. But Israel really doesn't want to highlight the feebleness of the enemy it is facing because attacking hospitals and killing so many civilians is hardly justified to wipe out something that can accurately be described as "not much to speak of".

      3. KenSchulz

        So far the IDF has shown a section of tunnel, a couple of toilets and nothing that looks like a command center. I don’t think they were lying; I think that there is a strong possibility that Israeli intelligence was deceived by Hamas disinformation*. It is difficult for me to accept that the IDF expected to find a major center of operations, yet appeared unwilling to take any chances at all to breach it quickly. One would expect that they would have had the bomb-sniffing dogs, explosives disposal teams, and robotic tunnel rats ready to go, to catch the enemy before they could destroy or remove equipment and documents.
        *As they obviously were about October 7.

  2. D_Ohrk_E1

    This chart roughly resembles the first month+ of China's official COVID death rate (deaths/infections) taken from WHO data (relaying official Chinese reports), where at a certain point, the data suddenly smoothed out. ????

    1. Crissa

      The broader the exposure, the more average it becomes. Earlier, there are fits and starts as people die in whole buildings or blocks collapsing. Later, many have evacuated and taken precautions and those rescued continue to die in hospitals... but the front of exposure is larger, so deaths become more diffuse.

  3. Justin

    Like other crime statistics, one must put these deaths in context… 150,000 people or more die every single day. So really, a few hundred Israelis or Palestinians are of no consequence at all. What’s the big deal?

    1. Justin

      And this is hilarious from the always entertaining NY Post.

      Hundreds of “radicalized” kids rampaged through the halls of a Queens high school this week for nearly two hours after they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally — forcing the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as the teen mob tried to push its way into her classroom, The Post has learned.

      The mayhem at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica unfolded shortly after 11 a.m. Monday in what students called a pre-planned protest over the teacher’s Facebook profile photo showing her at a pro-Israel rally on Queens Oct. 9 holding a poster saying, “I stand with Israel.”

      Facebook for the win!

      We’re supposed to believe they care about Palestinians.

      1. Crissa

        We're supposed to believe you're not a bigot?

        Because you just picked out one side.

        Why is one side 'terrified' and the other not? Did not the Palestinian teachers stand terrified as you apologized for genocide?

        1. Justin

          A bunch of idiot teenagers found an excuse to act out. Because they knew naive people like you would defend them. Even their classmates knew it was a joke.

  4. Cycledoc

    Neither combatant in this is on the side of the angels. Both are guilty of atrocities and every day people are being killed on both sides.

    Israel has solidified the opposition of most of the world to their apartheid state even though their people were the first innocent victims in October. Quite an accomplishment.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      One of my frustrations over the last month has been seeing so-called supporters of the Palestinian people do real damage to the cause by spewing nonsense like this. The innocent Palestinians who are victims of the war in Gaza deserve better.

      Maybe you believe the Palestinians are on the brink of extinction. Maybe you buy the propaganda about genocide. But I guess you're more likely trying to express the awfulness of the situation in Gaza, where the people are nearly defenseless against the superior military force that Israel has unleashed.

      But you should understand that what you're saying is nonsense. It may get approval at a campus rally somewhere, but it's not going to "win the Metropole," as one scholar has put it.

      There are about 14 million Palestinians, including 3 million in the West Bank, 2 million in Gaza, and another 2 million in Israel. The other half of the Palestinian population live in other countries, including 2 million in Jordan.

      Israel can go on killing Palestinians, which is a tragedy worth preventing, but they will never kill all of them. It's not remotely in the realm of possibilities. Even at the current rate, the most likely outcome for the future is that the Palestinian population will be far larger than it is today, since the birth rate far exceeds the death rate.

      Also likely, the deaths in Gaza will not continue at the current rate indefinitely. In weeks or months, the major military offensive will be over. A ceasefire or truce will hold. It may take a few attempts to get it to stick.

      I don't hold out hope for a real peace in the region unless both sides are talking honestly about what's going on. Nonsense like this, in my opinion, is an obstacle to the goal you would like to achieve.

        3. tango

          What definition of genocide are you using? The "official" definition requires "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The popular definition involved death camps and government efforts to exterminate. What the Israelis are doing in Gaza in no way resembles that.

          You are either just tossing out incendiary word for dramatic effect or are ignorant of what the word means. Ironically, the closest action to genocide are what Hamas has said it wants to do and has actually tried on a limited scale.

          1. Coby Beck

            The "official" definition requires "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

            Not commenting on Crissa's birth/death rate remark, but using the (correct) definition you have put forth, Isreal is clearly in the process of committing genocide. They have made the usual hard part easy by saying openly what their intentions are in Gaza.

            GENEVA (16 November 2023) – Grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians in the aftermath of 7 October, particularly in Gaza, point to a genocide in the making, UN experts said today. They illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.

            “Many of us already raised the alarm about the risk of genocide in Gaza,” the experts said. “We are deeply disturbed by the failure of governments to heed our call and to achieve an immediate ceasefire. We are also profoundly concerned about the support of certain governments for Israel's strategy of warfare against the besieged population of Gaza, and the failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide,” they said.

            The bombardment and siege of Gaza have reportedly killed over 11,000 people, injured more than 27,000 and displaced 1.6 million persons since 7 October 2023, while thousands are still under the rubble. Of those killed, about 41 per cent are children and 25 percent are women. On average, one child is killed and two are injured every 10 minutes during the war, turning Gaza into a “graveyard for children,” according to the UN Secretary-General. Almost 200 medics, 102 UN staff, 41 journalists, frontline and human rights defenders, have also been killed, while dozens of families over five generations have been wiped out.

            “This occurs amidst Israel’s tightening of its 16-year unlawful blockade of Gaza, which has prevented people from escaping and left them without food, water, medicine and fuel for weeks now, despite international appeals to provide access for critical humanitarian aid. As we previously said, intentional starvation amounts to a war crime,” the experts said.

            They noted that half of the civilian infrastructure in Gaza has been destroyed, including more than 40,000 housing units, as well as hospitals, schools, mosques, bakeries, water pipes, sewage and electricity networks, in a way that threatens to make the continuation of Palestinian life in Gaza impossible.

            “The reality in Gaza, with its unbearable pain and trauma on the survivors, is a catastrophe of enormous proportions,” the experts said.

            “Such egregious violations cannot be justified in the name of self-defense after attacks by Hamas on 7 October, which we have condemned in the strongest possible terms,” the experts said. “Israel remains the occupying power in the occupied Palestinian territory, which also includes the Gaza Strip, and therefore cannot wage a war against the population under its belligerent occupation,” they said.

            “In order to be legitimate, Israel’s response must be strictly within the framework of international humanitarian law,” the UN experts said. “The presence of underground tunnels in parts of Gaza does not eliminate the civilian status of individuals and infrastructure that cannot be directly targeted nor suffer disproportionately,” they said.

            The experts also raised the alarm about the escalation of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, by soldiers and armed settlers. Since 7 October 2023, at least 190 Palestinians have been killed, more than 2,700 injured, and over 1,100 individuals displaced in the occupied West Bank. On 9 November, Israeli forces also bombed, for the second time, the Jenin refugee camp with heavy artillery and airstrikes, killing at least 14 Palestinians. The increasingly coercive environment has also led to forcible displacement of several communities of pastoralists and Bedouin People in the Jordan Valley and south of the Hebron Hills.

            “We are deeply distressed at the failure of Israel to agree to – and the unwillingness of the international community to press more decisively for – an immediate ceasefire. The failure to urgently implement a ceasefire risks this situation spiralling towards a genocide conducted with 21st century means and methods of warfare,” the experts warned.

            They also expressed alarm over discernibly genocidal and dehumanising rhetoric coming from senior Israeli government officials, as well as some professional groups and public figures, calling for the “total destruction”, and “erasure” of Gaza, the need to “finish them all” and force Palestinians from the West Bank and east Jerusalem into Jordan. The experts warned that Israel has demonstrated it has the military capacity to implement such criminal intentions.

            (source: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/11/gaza-un-experts-call-international-community-prevent-genocide-against )

            1. Joseph Harbin

              You say: "Isreal is clearly in the process of committing genocide." IOW, genocide is happening now.

              UN experts say: "The failure to urgently implement a ceasefire risks this situation spiralling towards a genocide...." IOW, without a ceasefire, there is a risk of genocide in the future.

              Don't mean to split hairs, but those are not the same thing.

              One thing I find interesting is that some of the evidence cited is from before Oct 7, and a close reading of the definition of "genocide" shows that a country can be in violation of "genocide" without dropping a single bomb or firing a single shot. Is that a useful definition or an inflammatory charge when most people understand genocide to mean an attempt to kill every last member of an ethnic, national, or religious group?

              The war over the past weeks has been devastating. Much like most wars. Israel has been ruthless in waging its military offensive and shown little regard for innocent victims. Criticize them for that, if you like. I do. But how does what they are doing different than what countless others have done in the past to justify a charge of "genocide"? Hiroshima. Dresden. Sherman's March to the Sea. Just a few examples from American history. Many tens of millions of lives were lost in war over a few decades last century. But the Holocaust was different. That was genocide.

              It's a powerful word. It's an important word. We need a word like that. But we shouldn't squander it by leveling an inflammatory charge of "genocide" against a country waging a justified war in response to a heinous attack but waging that war in often unjustified ways. That is, sadly, commonplace in history. It's still not genocide.

      2. raoul

        The purposeful extermination and dislocation of a group of people from a given area is genocide. (e.g., Armenia or the American Indian). If Israel keeps mowing down 300 souls everyday for an extended amount of time the eventuality would be a genocide in Gaza. You may not like it but that’s the reality and the sooner the people in Israel know this the better.

        1. Joseph Harbin

          Is Israel engaged in "purposeful extermination" of a group? Not that I see. If you have evidence, show it. Is "dislocation of a group from a given area" genocide? Israel has had Palestinians relocate from the north to the south of Gaza, so that innocent lives may be saved in their fight with Hamas, but to call that genocide is to destroy the meaning of the term. In fact, Israel's actions go against the argument that it is trying to purposefully exterminate Palestinians.

          There are legal definitions of genocide, and there is an everyday understanding of what most people think it means. The prime example of the latter is the Holocaust. What is happening in Gaza may be an awful atrocity, but it is not the Holocaust. To call it a genocide is to engage in inflammatory propaganda. It does not do justice to what is going on. It gives people like Heysus (maybe yourself too) the false idea that there will be no Palestinians left when Israel's military operations end. To spread false ideas is a dangerous act. People who know better ought to stop it.

          1. raoul

            What I seen in the reports is indiscriminate killing and I have read reports from government officials who don’t frankly don’t care and haven’t for a while (recall the several “rubble” references). Israel has killed 9000 women and children, so forgive me if I don’t see IDF’s action with the same sanguine eyes as you do. To be clear, the danger here is not semantics and your obstreperous rhetoric simply defies common sense. How many people have to die before you are okay with calling it the Gaza genocide. Would you still have a problem with the term if the total dead reach 100,000? 200,000? What’s your flavor?

            1. Joseph Harbin

              I called what's happening an atrocity, for god's sake. Here you come along and pretend if I don't call it "genocide" -- your term and the wrong term -- then I'm not taking the deaths of Palestinians seriously.

              Why don't you just call Israel guilty of "atrocities"? Then you might find more people agree with you and we could get beyond this debate about semantics, which you have brought into the conversation.

            2. Atticus

              Until Palestinians start denouncing Hamas instead of cheering their barbarity I’m not going to shed too many tears no matter how many of them are killed.

        2. rick_jones

          If Israel keeps mowing down 300 souls everyday for an extended amount of time the eventuality would be a genocide in Gaza.

          Elsewhere in the comments it has been asserted the population of Gaza is something like 2 million people. So, if the definition is 1%, then "the eventuality" would be 67 days. 10% then would be 670 days.

  6. rick_jones

    Since the beginning of November Israel has been killing a very steady 300 Palestinians per day.

    Something which does not pass the sniff test. Practiced as the Israeli military may be, they aren’t that precise.

  7. paul.murphy

    Why are you citing numbers from Hamas as if they are legitimate? Also, even if they weren't lying (and they are), the number includes terrorists killed.

    1. TheMelancholyDonkey

      1) Those are the only figures available.
      2) Independent outfits checking on the Gazan Ministry of Health's casualty figure from earlier conflicts have found that they are broadly accurate.

      In short, there isn't any good reason not to cite their numbers beyond just not liking Hamas. I don't like Hamas, either, but they are useful on this specific item.

    2. Crissa

      Why are you confusing Hamas for Palestinians, paul murphy?

      Is it because you're excusing genocide?

      It seems you're excusing genocide and carpet bombing.

      1. Atticus

        Hamas is the group that wants genocide. Israel could have exterminated every Palestinian in a week if they wanted to. But they don’t.

        1. painedumonde

          I think you have the crux of equation that Israel is running right now. How aggressive (indiscriminate is another word that could be used) can they run operations without negative impacts from allies. That is preciseness that Israel is practicing. There is a lot of negative pressure from abroad, more than ever before, yet those in control of the levers continue to back Israel. History will decide how close they cut it.

      2. paul.murphy

        Carpet bombing would kill 2.3 million people. Targeted strikes with collateral damage results in 10k. Also, the word genocide being used in this way is disgusting. Genocide means deliberate extermination of an entire people. Do you think Israel intends to kill 2.3 million Gazans?

  8. rick_jones

    Somewhere along the way, what was a solid, straight line in Kevin's chart became a dotted line. When I asked about it in an email, Kevin's response was it was to make it clearer there was no data from November 11 to November 21...

    Speaking of chart crimes...

  9. rokeeffeDC

    This is the tragic result of the war that Hamas started with its cowardly attacks on October 7. All of these deaths are on Hamas and no one else.

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