Medical Journal publishes defamatory figure on death toll in Gaza
The Lancet The magazine, a respected medical journal founded in 1823, published an article earlier this week by doctors Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee and Salim Yusuf claiming: “It is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths may be attributed to the current conflict in Gaza.”
Although the short text was labeled as “correspondence” or a letter to the editor rather than a peer-reviewed academic article, and the text referred to alleged future cumulative death rates rather than current ones, the platform of the prestigious magazine gave it an air of credibility. This led to anti-Israel social media users spreading the new slander en masse, studiously forgetting to mention the nature of the letter.
For example, UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who claims to be a legal expert, cited the article and claimed in a tweet: “If you include both direct and indirect deaths from the Israeli attack, the death toll in Gaza rises to 186,000 people, according to the medical journal. The Lancet. That is one in twelve Gazans killed during the genocide of the last nine months.”
When both direct and indirect deaths from the Israeli attack are included, the death toll in Gaza rises to 186,000 people, according to the medical journal. @The Lancet. That’s 1 in 12 Gaza residents killed in the last 9 months of the genocide. https://t.co/pOvhnyKMPW
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories (@FranceskAlbs) July 8, 2024
Another disseminator of the numbers was the Qatar-affiliated Middle East Eye, which mentioned in a tweet that it was a “letter from experts” but nevertheless published a graphic poster that put the new “death toll” on the lancet magazine itself.
Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian academic who was indicted by the United States for his links to Islamic Jihad and expelled from the United States, also referred to the article and wrote to the lancet“a respected and peer-reviewed medical journal,” estimates that “186,000 people have been killed by Israel since October 7.”
Other viral spreaders of the new smear included Labour MP Zarah Sultana, pro-terror blogger Mohammed El-Kurd, anti-Israel group Democracy Now, former JVP official Rabbi Alissa Wise, Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta, French reporter Charles Villa and Canadian Palestinian neuroscientist Afif Aqrabawi.
Three days after publication, one of the authors, Professor Martin McKee, retracted the figures he had included in his article, saying they were “purely illustrative” and that “our article has been widely misquoted and misinterpreted”. However, none of the above authors has retracted their statements.
The JerusalemPost turned to the lancet The magazine asks whether the magazine stands behind the claims, whether it plans to retract the claims following McKee’s comments, or whether it plans to issue a clarification regarding the nature of the written article.
lancet Answer
The Lancet magazine responded by announcing that the letter was published in the “Correspondence” section of The Lancet by external authors. The figure 186,000 and the corresponding 7.9% are estimates, which are explained in this paragraph of the correspondence:
“In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths are three to 15 times higher than direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths for every one direct death to the 37,396 reported deaths, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths are attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Assuming the estimated population of the Gaza Strip in 2022 of 2,375,259 people, this would correspond to 7.9% of the total population of the Gaza Strip.”
The authors also point out that many of these indirect deaths may not have even occurred yet: “Armed conflict has indirect health impacts that go beyond the direct harm of violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, many indirect deaths will continue to occur in the months and years to come.”
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