Destroyed buildings in Jabalia, Gaza, in February 2025
Imago/Alamy
About 75,000 people in the Gaza Strip – 3.6 percent of the population – died for violent reasons between October 7, 2023 and January 5, 2025, according to an independent study based on household survey. This is a high estimate of over 46,000 violent deaths during this period by Gaza’s Minister of Health.
The study also estimates that almost 9,000 more non-violent deaths during this period would be expected in the Gaza Strip. This is the first estimate of the indirect deaths ever because of the war in the region that began in Octuber 2023.
The study is based on interviews with 2000 randomly selected households, with people asked to list all members of the household before the war and then the current situation. “We were actually in the field, and we collect data from the population,” says DeBarati Guha-Paper at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
While the team was unable to access some areas due to nail control and Israeli evacuation orders, this hole would like to underestimate rather than overestimation, the researchers think.
Guha-paper says Gaza’s Minister of Health has strict criteria for counting deaths. For example, it does not count death where no bodies have been found, such as people buried in tunnels. So she thinks her team is estimated is closer to the true number.
Another independent study published in February concluded that the death toll up to 24 June 2024 was higher than the official numbers with a similar share. However, the sources used in this study included an online study and obituaries on social media, so Guha-Septs think her team’s approach is more reliable.
Francesco Chekchi at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, whose team completed the February survey, disagreed. “The study is not necessarily more accurate than our study,” he says. But Guha-Papers’ study is more updated and also includes indirect deaths, says Checkchi. “As such, it presents a more complete picture of mortality.”
The estimate of about 9000 indirect deaths as a result of the war is lower than some previous proposals. Actually in a letter in Lancet By 2024, three researchers claimed on the basis of what happened in other conflicts that there may be indirect deaths for each direct death in Gaza, and that the death toll could be as high as 186,000 at that time.
But this relationship between indirect deaths to directing has only been seen ashore as southern, where there was extreme poverty and poor healthcare before conflicts began, Guha-Paper says. It is a mistake to apply it to Gaza, where the situation was different from Sudan before the war began, she says.
But if the conflict continues, this can still be changed. “As conditions deteriorate, no -violent deaths will soon rise rapidly,” says team member Michael Spagat at Royal Holloway University of London.
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