The independent estimate of the Gaza deceased is higher than the official numbers

About 75,000 people in Gaza Strip – 3.6 percent of the population – died from violent reason between 7 October 2023, according to an independent study based on a home survey. It is higher than the estimated 46,000 violent deaths at this time to minister to Gaza’s health.

It is also estimated to study with nearly 9000 more violent deaths at this time than the Gaza Strip is usually expected. It was the first to estimate the indirect death due to regional war starting October 2023.

The study is based on interviews of 2000 selected homes, which people ask to list all members of the household before the war. “We are actually in the field, and we collect data directly from the population,” as Dabarati Tears-Sapir In the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

While the team has not accessed some places due to the continuing fights and orders to evacuate Israel, this gap is likely to think of more than overburding, researchers think.

Guha-Sapir said that the Gaza ministry had strict behavior for counting deaths. For example, the deaths were not counted where no bodies were found, like people buried in tunnels. So he thought his team estimate was closer to the real number.

other Independent study published in February concluded that deaths through 24 June 2024 are higher than the official numbers by similar proportion. However, the sources used in this study include an online survey and social media obituaries, so Take-Sapir thinks that his team’s way is more reliable.

Francesco Checchi In London school in Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, whose team makes study February, disagree. “The survey should not be more accurate than we study,” he said. But the study of Take-Sapir is more so far, and also includes indirect deaths, as Checchi. “So, it gives a more complete picture of mortality.”

The estimated of about 9000 indirect deaths due to a result of the war is lower than previous suggestions. In fact, in a letter to The lancet in 2024Three researchers claimed the basis for the occurrence of other independent deaths for each direct death in Gaza, and thus the death of that time could be longer than 186,000.

But that ratio of indirect deaths directly visible only in countries such as Sudan where severe poverty and poor health care began before conflicts, Guha-Sapir said. It’s wrong to apply it to Gaza, where the situation is different than the Sudan before war begins, he said.

However, if conflict continues, it can still be changed. “As the circumstances worsen, non-death deaths can easily rise,” As the team member Michael Spagat In the Royal Hollololay University in London.