According to findings announced by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and published in The Lancet journal, there were an estimated 64,260 “traumatic injury deaths” in Gaza between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2024. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza put the figure at 37,877 at the time.
This means the ministry has underreported the death toll due to violence by approximately 41%, the researchers found. As of October, the number of Gazans killed by violence was thought to exceed 70,000, the study said, based on the estimated underreporting rate.
The total death toll attributable to Israel’s military campaign is likely to be higher still, it said, as its analysis doesn’t account for deaths caused by disruption to health care, insufficient food, clean water and sanitation, and disease outbreaks.
Just you wait, they’ll follow a playbook that has been used for a long time. First they’re gonna say that the official death toll, around 46,000 identified people, is incorrect. ‘Many of them were Hamas’ or ‘Hamas is inflating the death count.’
Once they realize the evidence overwhelmingly shows that the official death toll is an undercount, they’re going to say it’s not more than the official death toll, it can’t be more than the identified deaths. ‘It can’t be more than 46,000, there’s no evidence that it’s more than those already counted’ or ‘I won’t believe a higher number without a name and a body.’
Then, once they can’t away from the higher estimate, they’ll switch to exclusively justifying it. ‘It doesn’t matter, they all deserved it for supporting Hamas.’