More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal.
The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.
A total of 42,200 women, children and elderly people died between 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel that prompted a devastating Israeli offensive into Gaza, and 5 January 2025, the study found. These deaths comprised 56% of violent deaths in Gaza.
“The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently
What is the normal death rate among a civilian population as a war rages around them? Is 3 or 4% high or low?
Seems damn low to me – but what do I know – for an attempt at genocide.
On the other hand:
It was based on a survey of 2,000 families in Gaza, carefully selected to be representative of the territory’s population, who were asked to give details of deaths among their members. The survey was run by experienced Palestinian pollsters known for their work in Palestine and elsewhere in the region.
Not to be casting nasturtiums or anything but given how the press corps turned out there’s at least the vague possibility of some bias in there.
It is from The Lancet and can be safely filed under ‘B’ for bin.
.
Spot on!
The survey was run by experienced Palestinian pollsters known for their work in Palestine and elsewhere in the region.
Very much on a par with the Lancet’s current day methodology – along the lines of “a carefully selected survey of 2,000 transgenders confirmed that they posed no threat whatsoever to women or children”.
I just asked Gemini, and this what it told me. It’s AI, so a pinch of salt is required …
The idea that thousands of Hamas jumped the border on 7.10.23, ran up to Israelis and shouted “Surprise”. And that’s all that they did. Amused me.
They all went boo
m!I could tolerate the concept of the NHS if it was good at medicine. Paying £140,000,000,000 a year for a political party that occasionally
dispenses asprins if you can get past the sentries is a tad irritating…
If the NHS cost £140bn we could all have massive tax cuts. Its budget was north of £200bn in 2024/25.
You wait until our vibrant new classes gain the ascendancy here – we might be looking at Tutsi/Hutu levels.
The Lancet has form on this. They did the same in the first Iraq war. Their methodology was to ask families whether any family members had died and count the results. But with cousin marriage and clans everybody is related to everybody else so there is a whole lot of double and multiple counting. Which helps if you want to present the scariest number. And further degrade the reputation of what used to be a respectable journal.
That ship sailed a long time ago.
Quite. How do you distinguish between one Mohammed bin Mohammed of Sword of the Infidel Slayer Street and another Mohammed bin Mohammed of Sword of the Infidel Slayer Street?
In Iraq, they asked where the WMDs are.
So I’ll ask: Where are all the dead bodies?
Vapourised by illegal weapons like thermobaric warheads, white phosphorous, thermite, et cetera. Which makes it an extra super duper triple genocidal crime – mass murder of innocent civilians, use of banned illegal weapons, and disrespecting dead bodies.
(Or that’ll be the explanation advanced, anyway)
Jewish space lasers
Given how interbred they all are over there, 200 families claiming that ‘my cousin was killed’ could all be referring to the same person.
The survey was run by experienced Palestinian pollsters known for their work in Palestine and elsewhere in the region.
I honestly reckon if World War Two occurred now these people would be putting adoring memes of Joseph Goebbels on X. A ‘nuking from Orbit’ which removes every single one of them from both their roles in the public sector and the associated pension is the only option. You don’t cure a cancer by part removing the infection.
Experienced Palestinian pollsters know exactly what is needed.
Inexperienced ones who ask the wrong questions or accept the wrong answers rarely stick around (on this mortal coil) for long.
Bzzzzt! A pendant writes: the mortal coil is the body one occupies, not the ground underneath them. Shrugging off the mortal coil is shrugging off the physical body.
Ooh, the pendant must swing back. Mortal coil means mortal struggle; enduring the troubles and turmoil of existing in the mortal plane. It does not mean the physical body or the state of being alive.
Yes, the physical state of being, not the ground that one walks on.
As a proportion of population, ten times fewer Brits were killed in The Blitz than in 7th October, and we bombed the Germans into the stone age. Gaza is fucking lucky they aren’t acres of radioactive glass.
Bzzzzt! Another pendant writes: your pronoun does not match your verb in “Gaza is … they …”
Yeah
Should’ve been ‘xe’
Bigot
Oi Pedants!
Please remember where you are. This isn’t bloody Samizdata.
Tut, it’s pendant.
What is the world coming to.
Trivia data. We killed 410.000 Germans at a cost of at best* £5900 each. Some 70,000 UK| deaths from bombing.
One-tenth as many, not “ten times fewer”.
or even a tenth of …
or perhaps 10% of ….
There are some reports (ME24) that Hamas is paying out to 50,000 widows. If either is anywhere close to accurate that’s a truly impressive targeted response by Israel.
I haven’t seen any reports of the hamas leadership, safely (they think) ensconced in Qatar and Londonistan, getting a tap on the shoulder (preferably a double tap) from Mossad. Anyone got any good news?
(Sound of pager buzzing).
Two things come to mind… Firstly, I’m sure that the IDF would have made a far better job of it if they intended to commit ‘genocide’, and secondly I see the BBC website is reporting that Hamas is increasing its control over Gaza again – which tends to suggest that the IDF was perhaps a little too careful in its attempts to minimize ‘collateral damage’.
For the higher end of “civilian casualties during wartime”, during the Thirty Years’ War areas like Mecklenburg, Pomerania and Württember lost over half their population to direct violence, famine, and disease, mostly concentrated into a few years .
It got really nasty in places: Magdeberg had over 25,000 residents in 1630, before it was besieged and then captured, and the victorious soldiery ran amok to loot the city with devastating results. In 1632 there were less than 500 people trying to survive in its ruins…
carefully selected to
. . . give the result they wanted.
I believe their reports are exaggerated by 10X. And most of those were killed by Hamas, not IDF.
As of early 2026, there are no permanent Jewish residents living in the Gaza Strip. Israel withdrew all its citizens, settlers, and military forces from the territory in 2005. The population is overwhelmingly Palestinian, with a very small minority of Christians (a few thousand), and zero Jewish inhabitants.
I wonder what would happen to any jews that did move to Gaza? Well we know, dont we, they would be genocided. I doubt its particuarly comfortable being a Christian there.
Going back to the seventies and eighties, there were quite a lot of Christians in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. Not sure about Gaza. They’ve mostly been driven out or killed.
And yes, that’s always been my question too, could a Jew get residency in Gaza?
There’s a book by Brigitte Gabriel ‘Because They Hate’ about her experience when Hezbollah took over southern Lebanon. Seven years living in a bomb shelter as a kid. It’s worth a read.
Studies show that most of the data presented to us by the meedya are entirely fictional.
And also factional.
Did I tell you that in Waitrose my wife heard a Karen declaring against “genocide hummus”? Where do they learn such things? The Guardian?
There are just too many cunts in the world, and the problem is metastasising.
At the lower end, I am in favour of hooting and jeering. At the upper end, a poke on the snoot and then a hoot and a jeer.
If I heard that (which I wouldn’t as I refuse to darken the doors of that cathedral to middle class wankerdom) I think I’d go up and ask her loudly where the ‘genocide hummus’ was and buy a trolley full of it, just to piss her off. And I wouldn’t even eat the stuff if you paid me.
You wouldn’t get that sort of arsehole in Aldi or Lidl.
So the threshold is killing 0.9% of the population is genocide. When is the NHS going to be up before the International Court?
One day after Kim Leadbetter
As someone (on here I think) pointed out the other day, the Hutu’s in Rwanda slaughtered around 750,000 (mostly Tutsi’s) in 100 days……..
NOW
That’s what I call genocide!
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