By Sue Harris
February 27, 2026

According to a peer-reviewed study in Lancet Global Health Research journal, the death toll in Gaza for the first 16 months of war was far higher than reported, totaling over 75,000 killed during that period, or 25,000 more than announced at the time.

The same research found that the Gaza Health Ministry had accurately reported that the figure of 42,200 women, children and elderly people comprised 56% of violent deaths that occurred in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and January 5, 2025. (Lancet, Global Health, February 18)

The study was based on a survey of 2,000 families in Gaza, led by well-respected Palestinian pollsters.

The Lancet Global Health study team, made up of an economist, a demographer, an epidemiologist and a survey specialist, also suggests that “3-4% of the people of the Gaza Strip had violent deaths in addition to many non-violent deaths indirectly caused by the conflict.” (The Guardian, Feb. 18)

Professor Michael Spagat, a 20-year veteran researcher, and an author of the study, says 8,200 deaths from October 2023 to January 2025 were attributable to indirect effects, such as malnutrition or untreated disease. He added: “I would push back on the notion that this is a small number of deaths. I think we’re experiencing desensitization effects.”  (The Guardian)

Famine in Gaza was declared by United Nations-backed experts in August last year.

Despite previous denials by Israel, a senior Israeli official now agrees when Gaza health authorities say that Israeli attacks killed more than 71,660 people, including over 570 killed since a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025. The new study contradicts the claim that an equal number of combatants and non-combatants were killed in Palestine.

Professor Spagat said: “It is not a given that there will be a multimillion-pound research project to reconstruct what actually happened. It will be a long time before we get to a full accounting of all the people killed in Gaza, if we ever get there.”