‘More than 186,000 dead’ in Gaza: How credible are the estimates published on The Lancet?

Marc DAOU
·1-min read

According to a "letter" published on the website of the British medical journal The Lancet, "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza". This is a significantly higher death toll than the 38,345 announced by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Thursday. FRANCE 24 takes a look at how the authors arrived at this estimate and whether their figure is credible.

According to a "letter" published on July 5 on the website of the renowned British medical journal The Lancet entitled "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential", "it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza".

Based on "the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip", write the co-authors of this letter published in the "correspondence" section of the website.

These figures are significantly higher than the death toll of 38,345 announced on Thursday July 11 by the Gaza Health Ministry, which has been publishing daily figures since the start of Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the besieged Palestinian territory, in response to the Islamist militant group’s October 7 attack on Israeli soil.

Direct and indirect deaths


Read more on FRANCE 24 English

Read also:
Gaza deaths near 30,000 as UN warns of ‘imminent’ famine
More than 100 killed as they queued for aid, Gaza health ministry says
Israeli military orders all Palestinians to leave Gaza's largest city

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