Gaza casualty toll could exceed 186,000, says Lancet study | News on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

According to the study, factors such as disease will lead to far more indirect deaths in the long term, even if the war ends now.

The cumulative impact of Israel’s war against Gaza could cause the actual death toll to rise to over 186,000, according to a study published in the journal Lancet.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the Israeli military offensive on October 7 following deadly Hamas attacks.

The study pointed out that the death toll was higher because official figures do not take into account the thousands of dead buried under rubble, as well as indirect deaths caused by the destruction of health facilities, food distribution systems and other public infrastructure.

Conflicts have indirect effects on health that go beyond the immediate damage caused by violence, the study says. And even if the Gaza war ends immediately, it will continue to cause many indirect deaths, for example from disease, in the coming months and years.

The study says the death toll is likely to be much higher because much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed, there are shortages of food, water and shelter, and funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has been cut.

“In recent conflicts, the number of such indirect deaths is three to 15 times higher than the number of direct deaths,” it says.

According to a “conservative estimate” of four indirect deaths for every one direct death, it is “not implausible to assume that up to 186,000 or even more deaths can be attributed to the Gaza war,” the study says.

This figure would correspond to almost 8 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million people.

The Lancet study noted that Israeli intelligence, the UN and the World Health Organization all agree that allegations against Palestinian authorities in Gaza of falsifying data related to the death toll there are “implausible.”

It was pointed out that the death toll was likely much higher, as the destruction of infrastructure in the Gaza Strip made it extremely difficult to maintain a count that did not fall below the actual death toll.

“Documenting the true scale is critical to ensure historical accountability and to recognize the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement,” it said.

The study noted that in a genocide case against Israel in January, the International Court of Justice ruled in preliminary rulings that Israel must, under the Genocide Convention, “take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence relating to the acts alleged.”

The study was published in the correspondence section of the journal, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed.