On the accuracy of the death counts in Gaza during the October 7, 2001 Israeli air strike: an analysis by the Lancet medical journal and the Nasser Medical Complex
DUBAI AND RAMALLAH, West Bank — Eman Abusaeid struggled to keep her children safe in Gaza, as Israeli bombs targeted her neighborhood in the days after Oct. 7, when Hamas militants stormed into Israel.
The gunpowder and dirt made us sneeze, as well as the dust bombing on our faces and bodies. She told NPR that her kids were constantly crying and yelling because of the F-16 war airplanes. “We’re trying to escape, but we don’t [know] where to go.”
The death tolls from wars with Israel have mostly been in line with counts by the United Nations, though there have been discrepancies in the past.
Thousands of people are missing and buried in side streets, or rotting in areas that can’t be reached.
An analysis published in the Lancet medical journal in December found that Gaza’s health ministry has “historically reported accurate mortality data,” with discrepancies between 1% and roughly 3% when compared with U.N. analysis of deaths in previous conflicts. The study found that difficulties in obtaining accurate death counts shouldn’t be seen as intentionally mis reported data.
In October, after President Biden said he had no confidence in the Gaza’s health ministry, the ministry published a list of thousands of victims’ names.
Hospital emergency rooms are the main source of the health ministry’s figures. Hospitals have an annual number of deaths in their hallways and operating rooms.
According to the ministry there have been more than 17,000 Palestinian deaths recorded this way with the victim’s name and other information recorded in the electronic database if the body cannot be identified.
In January, Israeli troops attacked and besieged two hospitals in the south. In the Nasser Medical Complex, the military said it was searching for hostages. The health ministry said there have been no death tolls reported at that hospital since February 13.
Health workers have also been hit — injured, displaced and killed. The health ministry says that 350 medical staff have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. Others have been wounded, including the director-general for Gaza’s health ministry, Dr. Munir al-Bursh, who was hurt and lost a young daughter in an Israeli air strike in December, according to Al Jazeera footage showing him speaking as he was being transported in an ambulance and cradling his daughter’s body.
On Oct. 31, Israeli warplanes targeted the five-story building the family was in. Abusaeid, 40, was killed. So were her husband and children. 23 members of the family were killed in the attack.
Six people were killed, including a younger sister who survived, according to relatives who confirmed the details.
The family of three children killed in the deadly airstrike: Jordan, Abusaeid, Mahmoud and Ziyad
NPR reached out to the Israeli military multiple times, including with coordinates of the building, with questions about why it was bombed, but did not receive a response.
Relatives say Abusaeid’s husband, Iyad, her brother, Mahmoud, her son, Ziyad, and three other children in the family are still missing under the rubble. Their bodies were never found.
“We have made it clear that there are people whose names and information cannot be recorded, whether those who are still under the rubble or those who are recovered from under the rubble and buried immediately,” al-Qudra says.
Bozya and doctors say the death count published by the health ministry excludes people who have died from a lack of treatment,disease and hunger, due to the war.
Bozya says a colleague in Gaza told him the only way to really know how many people have died is to count the number of people still alive compared with the population of Gaza before Oct. 7.
These casualty figures are not just numbers for people who have lost loved ones in the war. Each one represents a life, someone who worked hard, had aspirations and was loved.
Mohammed says his sister Tqwa, who lost six children in the airstrike, can’t talk when he calls from southern Gaza.
He misses having the ability to call his parents in Gaza, and have a photo of his children with them, on his phone. He finds it hard to look at the pictures of his parents, six siblings, 12 nieces and nephews and other relatives who were killed in the Oct. 31 attack.
“When I look at pictures, it’s very painful,” he says. “Ten years, I was praying to Allah, you know, to reunite with my family. This will never happen.
Hamas is ready to fight: a case for peace in the Gaza conflict, says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, said on Thursday in a social media post that most of those killed in Gaza were women and children.
The health ministry says that infants have died of dehydration in recent days. A physician who was in Gaza in late January told CBS’s “60 Minutes” this week that people were dying “in a fully treatable situation” because of the lack of basic medical supplies.
Hamas is open to making a deal with Israel but it is also ready to fight, according to the group’s political leader. There is a chance of new unrest around a site holy to both Muslims and Jews after he called on Palestinians to march to the Aqsa mosque compound.
Israel has come under growing international pressure to stop its offensive, and even President Biden, its strongest ally, has expressed growing frustration with the rising death toll and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But Israeli leaders have insisted that they will continue fighting in order to eliminate Hamas, the armed group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which officials say at least 1,200 people were killed and 240 others taken hostage, setting off the war.