At least 20,000 Palestinians have died in Palestinian territory since the start of the conflict with Israel, according to a statement released on Wednesday by the Gaza Strip media office of the Hamas authority.
The violence raged for more than two months after it started on October 7, with an estimated 8,000 children and 6,200 women among the dead, according to the report.
Data from the health ministry administered by Hamas in Gaza shows that from the beginning of the battle, discounting the seven-day ceasefire, around 300 people have died every day on average. Richard Brennan, regional emergency director for the World Health Organization, said he believes these death toll statistics are reliable.
It is difficult to count the dead in any conflict area, and Gaza’s physicians estimate that the death toll is probably much higher because it does not include people who were not carried to hospitals or buried beneath the debris of demolished structures.
The data, their comparison to previous conflicts, and their impact on Gaza’s youth population have all been thoroughly examined by BBC Verify.
