Talk:Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war

Revised casualties

The UN citing the Gaza Ministry of Health has revised casualties. 1 2. The page will have to changed accordingly. - UtoD 04:43, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

It does state that 24,000 are identified. In the count it only includes the stats for the identified, while listing the total death toll including unidentified bodies (34,000). The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 07:04, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Fake news!!! Un has revised women and children deaths down 50pct 69.117.245.25 (talk) 18:53, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Those lower figures are the ones that have been fully identified. Which is a bit silly as they can't verify the figures and that's not what they'd use if they could verify them. A lot of men are identified on forms because the women need support if their husbands are killed. I think only three hospitals are able to do identification now. The Gaza Health Ministry is very conservative with its figures and the actual number of deaths will be much higher. NadVolum (talk) 00:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Added non factual tag until corrections are made.Patrick.N.L (talk) 23:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Any mention of casualty numbers provided by Hamas should be removed as non factual until confirmation by credible source. Moreover, hyperbolism about casualties should be avoided, and the use of new numbers should be done with prudence considering the amount of false information that has seeped into most major news outlet. https://www.yahoo.com/news/united-nations-cuts-estimates-women-170941270.html Patrick.N.L (talk) 23:48, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

The total figure remains unchanged. This is probably the fullest report so far on the update in how UN reports: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/middleeast/death-toll-gaza-fatalities-un-intl-latam/index.html BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:32, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with many of the edits by Patrick NL over the last hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Casualties_of_the_Israel–Hamas_war&diff=1223766173&oldid=1223751319 Several of the removed intances have not been refuted and are properly sourced, with claims attributed. I agree we shouldn’t use rolling news blogs and to be careful about attribution but these sweeping edits are excessive. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:58, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I am hopping over from the discussion section on the infobox page from the Israel-Hamas War article. This is meant as a helpful reply to everyone in this discussion post. There have been over 35,000 recorded Palestinian fatalities in the war so far. 24,686 of these have been identified and registered by hospitals and the Ministry of Health. The remaining are unregistered deaths from local media reports and fatalities with incomplete identification data. These are the facts. What numbers we use for the breakdown of each category of fatalities (men, women, children, elderly, etc.) is the question. The total numbers of fatalities for women (9,500) and children (14,500) the GMO uses would imply that all of those that are currently in the unidentified category are women and children if you do the math, which would be statistically highly unlikely, as the BBC, The Times Of Israel and other sources and users like @ExVivoExSitu have pointed out. If we are striving for accuracy, I think the most sensible thing is to include the most reliable data which are the identified fatality numbers for each category OR include both sets of fatality figures and make the distinction in the wiki article. Nathan1223 (talk) 10:38, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Ive reverted again, several highly tendentious additions were made, such as claiming false figures and that the estimates were cut in half. nableezy - 19:34, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The sources have a disproportionate number of children and women casualties have been refuted by the UN after its investigation. Previous estimates doubled the number of casualties for children and women.

The conflict is evolving and so must the numbers. Like @Nathan1223 requested, the facts should be put forward and not old numbers that have been refuted by a UN investigation. Patrick.N.L (talk) 19:59, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Again, no part of your claim that a disproportionate number of children and women casualties have been refuted by the UN after its investigation is true, and the UN has specifically said that is not true. nableezy - 21:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

"killed" vs "died"

As far as I can tell, the ubiquitous Ministry of Health numbers are reported to count all deaths recorded in Gazan hospitals, regardless of cause of death. If that's true, I don't think the word "killed" is appropriate when citing those numbers. On the other hand, sources tend to use that word uncritically. Probably because the MoH uses it? If some other body creates estimates based on those numbers, "killed" might be appropriate. Ornilnas (talk) 21:53, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

On the other other hand, when people die, something, the cause, killed them. That something might by a bomb or sepsis or dehydration etc., but in any case, it killed them. This kind of argument doesn't only apply to MoH data, it applies to any instance of the word 'killed' in the article doesn't it, and there are almost 200 instances surrounded by a wide variety of words that hopefully reflect the language of the sources sampled. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

In most instances, it's worded as something like "killed by the war". If it's worded "killed during the war", I guess you could argue it's technically correct, but super weird and misleading wording. Ornilnas (talk) 06:31, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Another way of looking at it is that in order to be misleading something needs to be leading. The word killed is not intrinsically leading, it's just a statement of fact. Thinking something is 'misleading' may also indicate that a person has added information to a set of words by 'reading between the lines' and making assumptions about implied cause/blame etc., despite there being nothing between the lines. The thing that concerns me in situation like this is that assessments like sources 'tend to use that word uncritically' can be premised on the notion that editors can do better than sources when there is incomplete information. I hope, but have no idea whether it is the case, that those 200ish instances reflect the language of the sources, more or less, including the presence or absence of information about cause. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other. I'm saying the word "died" would be much more accurate than "killed", if my understanding of the number collection is correct. I agree that most sources use the word "killed", which limits our options. But it both degrades the quality of the article, and causes contradictions within it. Preferably, we would get a good and reliable source which clearly describes what the numbers actually mean, which we could then use to update the language in the article. Or, if we had separate estimates (based on the MoH numbers or not), we could use those instead. Ornilnas (talk) 07:47, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect date: June 13 should be May 13

"As of June 13, the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities."

It's still May, and the date on the article reads 05-13 Sturmundsonne (talk) 10:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Okay fixed that thanks. NadVolum (talk) 12:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Request for comment on data which is known to be false on casualty figures still on wikipedia page

Most of the information about casualties is still based on the old Hamas numbers yet the UN have published revised numbers. Yet people keep removing the new numbers from UN and putting back the info from the old numbers as if they were fact.Patrick.N.L (talk) 16:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The UN did not publish new numbers, they have a subset of fully identified deaths and those missing one or more fields in the tracked data. You also have no brief neutral question for an RFC here. ScottishFinnishRadish want to do something about this? Since my doing something would be frowned upon. See also #Revised casualties. nableezy - 17:38, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

De-RFC'd, thanks for the heads up. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The UN did publish new numbers, the total casualties haven't changed but the division between men women and children has changed in a major way.

After investigations the UN halved the amounts of kids and women killed which were grossly overstated. But then authors keep reverting edits to put the grossly inaccurate numbers and keeping numbers from sources that used Hamas reports instead.

Putting information based on false data should not appear or should be clearly stated the casualty data for women and children were doubled. Patrick.N.L (talk) 22:22, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That is absolutely false. All parts of it. The UN published numbers for fully identified bodies, and further said the total number of dead has not changed, only that a number of the dead do not have complete records. CNN: UN says total number of deaths in Gaza remains unchanged after controversy over revised data:The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.

According to Haq, the ministry published a breakdown for 24,686 fully identified deaths out of the total 34,622 fatalities recorded in Gaza as of April 30. The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.

The propaganda that you are pushing here had been directly refuted by the place you are claiming supports it. nableezy - 22:41, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

They are not false casualty figures. The new figures shown are the number of casualties who have been fully identified. It is mostly but not fully a subset of the recorded deaths and the OCHA prefers using them, it does not say the other figures are false. This is something that needs resoluton okay but to describe what is happening properly using reliable sources and it is a bit complicated. NadVolum (talk) 17:46, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

(invited by the bot) As noted, there is no specific question here. Being a current event, with lots of sources, spin, bias etc. I think it would be put attribution (and avoid stating as fact in the voice of Wikipedia) and background with any numbers. Including "where did number come from?" Did that state the criteria and particulars? Who controls the entity that issued the number? And do put in numbers in places where that attribution and background can't be included. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

There is a specific question but i am new to this. Shouldn't we remove any casualty data known to be false following united nations accurate investigations or put a disclaimer that the casualties for children and women is actually half of what was previously reported.

The problem is that historically credible sources used data which is now known to be false. After identifying 80% of bodies, the UN realized they doubled the amount of kids and women casualties by taking hamas reports. There is no debate on what's proven or not. The previous data was false regarding the division between women, men and children, even if they came from what is usually credible sources.

Yes there are still 20% bodies still to be identified but they should match the same distribution as the known sample which is around 35 000. Even if 10k out of 45k is still unidentified, that wouldn't double the casualties of children and women.

Any mention of casualties from Hamas prior to the un investigation should be have a disclaimer that the casualties for children and women are actually half of what Hamas reported.

It's simply a matter of prudence. We should not put data which is confirmed to be gross misinformation. Patrick.N.L (talk) 22:37, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The claim that any of this is "known to be false" is completely made up. The rest of the above comment continues along that same path. The UN did not identify any bodies, they are using the records from the Gazan Ministry of Health. You are making things up here, and are edit warring on the basis of that fantasy. nableezy - 22:44, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Plus extrapolating from the number of identified men is rather fraught as they say that the forms system is used a lot by women to identify their dead husbands so they can receive assistance from the state. On the other hand many of the men may have been taken away by Israel or buried under rubble so may be a larger percentage among the missing. We should wait for some reasonably independent source with some expertise or better figures from the health ministry. I view the recorded deaths including media sources as probably a better source but still think it probably underestimates the children killed. NadVolum (talk) 19:37, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Some cleanup: missing men, MOH/GMO mixups, registration, relative reports

1. This sentence excludes the MOH-stated total for the number of men killed: "As of May 13, 2024 the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities." It should be revised to the following: "As of May 13, 2024 the UN reported that the 35,000 who have died in the conflict includes 10,006 men, 7,797 children, 4,959 women and 1,924 elderly with confirmed identities." Citation: The Reuters article already cited includes this information.
2. This sentence miscites the MOH while using GMO figures (which should not be used since they conflict with MOH figures and the GMO does not have the capacity/authority to collect casualty data): "On 29 February 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that 44% (i.e. over 13,000) of the fatalities were children.[47]" It should be removed, and replaced by the following (or some form of it): "On 3 May 2024, Gaza's Ministry of Health reported that of 24,691 of those killed who are fully or partially identified, 31.6% (7,798) are children. The Gaza Ministry of Health defines children as those between 0 and 18, distinct from the UN definition, which includes those 0-17." Citation: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/5401
3. This passage is untrue during wartime: "Every death registered in Gaza is the result of a verified change in the population registry approved by the Government of Israel.[106] The Israeli government notes that its "Population Registry Office works to update population registry files located on the Israeli side to match the files that are held" in the West Bank and Gaza.[107]" It should be modified to "In peacetime, Every death registered...".
4. This sentence remains incorrect, since the Google Form was launched in January and not March: "In March 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry requested that civilians register their dead online, as the healthcare system collapse had resulted in the ministry being unable to maintain a regularly updated death toll.[113]" It should be modified to "In January 2024, the Gaza Health Ministry requested that civilians register their dead online, as the healthcare system collapse had resulted in the ministry being unable to maintain a regularly updated death toll." Citation: https://t.me/MOHMediaGaza/4718

ExVivoExSitu (talk) 20:01, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Possibly #1 can be corrected. I don't see how #2 would be citable here. For #3, we cannot synthesize a new fact if that isn't already in the cited source. For #4 you are suggesting changing only the date of the Gaza Health Ministry's request, right? Based on a Telegram post? ~Anachronist (talk) 23:21, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

#1 is about civilians and men are counted as potential militants.

#2 No misciting, All that has happened is that the UN now used confirmed identities. It has explicitly said that it is not disputing the other figures

#3 Have we a cite saying Israwel won't check the registry against the spreadsheets the ministry provides because it is wartime?

#4 It may be telegram which I dislike and I'd much prefer a better source but I'll stick it in. NadVolum (talk) 00:47, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

For #1 it is problematic to count all men as militants, to say the least. The Reuters article lists the entire demographic breakdown together: men, women, children, and elderly. Perhaps the location of the sentence is not ideal, but it does not make sense to only partially cite the demographics.

For #2 I provided the Health Ministry source for their most up-to-date demographics, since the GMO is not the actual relevant authority for casualty recording and its number can't be reconciled with the Health Ministry. However, you could use the same Reuters article as #1 for a source. Citing the 0-18 definition is a different challenge and would require another source, agreed.

For #3, can't the same question go in reverse? Why would the Health Ministry and Israeli government be communicating and exchanging death certificates during the war? All the given citations indicate is that there is such an arrangement in peacetime, and it is an assumption to state that things will work the same way during a war.

For #4, @Anachronist you're right, just changing the date the call was first put out. There is probably a Facebook post I could find from the same day, but I assume that is probably worse for longevity than Telegram, and Telegram is the primary mode of communication for the media office anyway. ExVivoExSitu (talk) 01:20, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

For #3, see WP:SYNTH. We can't include something the source doesn't say, and the source says nothing about peacetime or wartime, just that deaths are registered. For #4, I guess between Facebook and Telegram, Telegram is better, so we just hold our nose while including the Telegram citation. NadVolum has done that. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:40, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Understanding the casualty figures

There's been a lot of argument about the casualty figures. Something will have to be put in about them but unfortunately it is not straightforward. My understanding is

• The health ministry generates statistics on recorded deaths and identified deaths. The say they try to only include those who die as a direct result of the conflict not those due to things like disease or old age.
  • The missing are not included in the recorded deaths and is an estimation which doesn't seem to have a any methodology or expert doing it and is probably out of date.

    Israel have a policy of hiding dead militants so they can't be used as martyrs. This will make the count of deaths of men in particular rather difficult, but means the missing probably contains a higher proportion of men than the recorded.

  • The recorded deaths are from dead bodies at hospitals and from trusted media including first responders.

  There is unlikely to be much duplication between the hospitals and the media sources

  The hospitals have gone down in importance as only three of the hospitals that did recording for morgues are still in action compared to the original eight.

  • The identified are ones identified at the hospitals that do recording of deaths, or using forms filled in in a hospital, by one or the internet.

    The identified ones are not necessarily ones whose deaths have been recorded. They may be ones that are counted as missing

    Identifying a death counts towards the number of identified but does not affect the count of recorded deaths.

    The ministry say the major use is by wives who want support when their husband is dead.

    It could be useful to know if widows of militants need the GHM to record the death to get benefits.

    They say it also fulfills a purpose of closure by identifying the dead.

    Also said if a whole family is wiped out by a bomb they may not get to be identified.

  • The ministry subtracts the count of identified from the number of recorded deaths and talk about that as the number still to be identified but some of the identified are among the missing. The missing should eventually be recorded so eventually they will be right. However adding the missing would be a better estimate of the number left to identify.
• Professor Abraham Wyner's analysis is deliberately twisted statistics. Fom an analysis I saw:

  The variation is far higher than one would expect on the most straightforward supposition rather than being too small like he asserted.

  One can get close to the variation if on average eleven out of twelve of the bombs killed nobody and the twelfth killed on average six people. This would be just recorded deaths.

  The anti correlation on different days between men an women killed can be explained by the ministry taking a day to process each category of deaths as a block.

• The fighting where the IDF encounters Hamas seems from what I've read seems to mostly involve the occasional Hamas suddenly popping up and shooting and then disappearing if they can. They also set booby traps.
• The demographics I believe is about 47% children, 25% men, 25% women, and 3% elderly.

  I would expect the number of civilian men casualties to be the same or higher as that of the women and for the children casualties to be almost twice that of women. However recording is pretty much of a mess.

  From a discussion above the GHM seem from their spreadsheet to use ages 0..18 inclusive for children rather than 0..17 which is what 'under 18' is supposed to mean in the Geneva Conventions. This is probably a mistake, I used the demographics of 0...14 and added a fifth for the 47% above which should approximate 0..17 fairly well.

Anyway that is my understanding of the figures at the moment. A lot would be hard to get proper reliable citations for in anything like the form I've given. As you can see various bits are rather hard to explain or will give strange results, but how much is really missing for this article? I'm sort of inclined to put any methodology in the Gaze Health Ministry article and just put any figures here with a pointer there. Bit of a cop out I'm afraid. NadVolum (talk) 23:48, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I think the methodology should indeed be in the Gaze Health Ministry article instead, with mainly a summary of that debate here.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:32, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 May 2024

Please change "In December, Israel's military said it estimated 66% of those killed to be civilians.[56]" to "In December, Israel's military said it estimated two out of three (~66%) of those killed to be civilians. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Conricus described this ratio as "tremendously positive".[56]"

Alone, the value 66% conceals the possibility that this is a rough estimate. What the IDF views as an acceptable or favorable civilian to military ratio is extremely pertinent to this subject.

Also, the link to Reference 56 is broken. I believe the intended reference is: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-military-civilian-ratio-killed-intl-hnk/index.html

Additionally: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-officials-2-civilian-deaths-for-every-1-hamas-fighter-killed-in-gaza/

I cannot find the original reference attributed to AFP. GammaDave (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I've replaced the broken link with the one you gave. I didn't put in how its figure was tremendously positive, it's disgusting enough the lie as it is. NadVolum (talk) 22:43, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Put in two thirds and second ref as well. NadVolum (talk) 08:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Gaza health ministry losing count/lagging

Should it be mentioned that the Gaza health ministry death toll is starting to slow down, and that it is still stuck at the mid 30 thousands mark for months despite consistent bombardment?

something like how it is very much an undercount given that due to the destruction of the healthcare system the GHM has basically stopped counting The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 04:23, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Have you got a reliable source? That's what's needed for things like that. Evene better if there is an analysis of why. Anything we did would otherwise just be WP:OR. NadVolum (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

There were many, especially old ones from November

this is the most recent I could find from last month

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/in-gaza-authorities-lose-count-of-the-dead-779ff694 The Great Mule of Eupatoria (talk) 04:11, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

They get counts from the media and first responders too now. It looks fairly good to me though it isn't as definitive as previously, I'd guess there's less than twenty thousand missing uncounted, they gave an estimate of ten thousand early on. There's a whole lot of problems and evidence of that but you said about the slowing down of the killing. I believe that has happened and it is actual rather than just apparent because the system has broken down, have you a citation either way for that? NadVolum (talk) 11:13, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia sucks

Most Americans are strongly biased against Israel. This page is a result of that. Wikipedia is not a valid source in any sense regarding political information. QwertyCTRL. (talk) 13:42, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at a Gallup poll on American attitudes to Israel and Palestine https://news.gallup.com/poll/611375/americans-views-israel-palestinian-authority-down.aspx These pages are for discussing improvements to the article. If you have some specific change you think is supported by a reliable source then welcome to Wikipedia and you can add a request for a change. NadVolum (talk) 14:05, 2 June 2024 (UTC)