What is the True Death Toll in Gaza? |
Image by Mohammed Ibrahim.
According to the latest figures released by the Gaza Ministry of Health (GMoH) on December 23rd 2025, Israel had killed at least 70,937 Palestinians and wounded 171,192; of those identified fatalities, 53% were women, children or elderly.
Despite the decimation of Gaza’s healthcare system, the GMoH has demonstrated remarkable resilience in gathering, verifying, and publishing data on a rolling basis, including comprehensive updates on the death toll in Gaza. In an interview with Drop Site News, Michael Spagat, a professor of economics at the University of London with a specialization in the quantitative analysis of armed conflict, said that it was “very significant that [the GMoH] is making their data available and it’s highly unusual. As a consequence, we understand the death toll in the Gaza war better than we do in almost all wars of the past few decades”. This has not stopped biased actors from casting doubt on the official casualty numbers, as Joe Biden infamously exclaimed early on in the genocide when he said that he had “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using”. Israeli officials have also consistently dismissed these totals as “Hamas propaganda”, although it is noteworthy that Herzi Halevi, Israel’s former Chief of Staff, recently