Honest Reporting published a report on Thursday noting a development that went largely unnoticed: at least 3,400 previously “identified” deaths — including more than 1,000 children Hamas had claimed were killed in Israeli airstrikes — were mysteriously deleted from the terrorist organization’s most recent list of fatalities.
Research by Salo Aizenberg, who serves on HonestReporting’s Board of Directors, compared fatality lists released by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry in August and October 2024 with a revised version issued in March 2025.
“Hamas has falsified fatality data in past wars, as this thread shows — despite the claims of its defenders, who wrongly insist Hamas has always been accurate, and even falsely claim that Israel accepts Hamas data as reliable,” Aizenberg wrote in a Twitter post that included extensive evidence of inflated figures.
The comparison revealed that of all fatalities recorded by Hamas between the ages of 13 and 55, which is the general combat age for Hamas fighters, 72% are male.
“This supports the IDF’s own assessments and underscores the fact that Israel has been conducting targeted strikes against militant operatives while making significant efforts to reduce civilian harm,” Honest Reporting wrote.
These efforts include: Precision Strikes: The IDF utilizes advanced intelligence-gathering methods, including drone surveillance and human intelligence, to ensure strikes target combatants and military infrastructure.
- Roof Knocking: Before carrying out airstrikes on identified Hamas targets, the IDF often deploys non-lethal warning strikes (roof-knocking) to urge civilians to evacuate.
- Evacuation Warnings: The IDF provides warnings via phone calls, text messages, and leaflet drops, urging civilians to leave areas that are about to be targeted.
- Target Selection: IDF operations prioritize eliminating Hamas leadership, weapons depots, and tunnel networks while avoiding unnecessary harm to civilians.
- Restraint in High-Casualty Situations: In some cases, the IDF has aborted missions upon detecting the presence of large numbers of civilians near a target.
In contrast, Hamas employs strategies designed to maximize civilian casualties to manipulate global opinion. The terrorist organization acheives this by:
- Human Shields: Hamas frequently positions military infrastructure, including weapons caches and command centers, in or near hospitals, schools, and residential areas.
- Forcing Civilians to Stay: Reports indicate that Hamas has actively prevented civilians from evacuating combat zones, even executing those who attempt to flee.
- Firing from Civilian Areas: Rockets are routinely launched from densely populated areas, ensuring that retaliatory strikes will result in collateral damage.
- Manipulating Casualty Reports: Hamas-controlled health authorities obscure the distinction between combatants and civilians, inflating the civilian death toll for propaganda purposes.
- Hospitals, Schools and Mosques as Cover: Hamas has used medical facilities, educational facilities and places of worship as military strongholds, making it difficult for the IDF to neutralize threats without hitting civilian infrastructure.
It should also be noted that Hamas could end the war by releasing the hostages and laying down its arms.
Honest Reporting’s research also indicates that among the reported deaths, an estimated 10,000 individuals are likely to have died from natural causes or unrelated incidents.
Andrew Fox, a researcher at the Henry Jackson Society and former British paratrooper who has collaborated with Aizenberg, said that the entire reporting system is so flawed it borders on fraudulent.
“The lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable,” he said.
In addition, the media usually follow the example of Hamas by not differentiating between civilians and combatants. Only 3% of outlets cited specific figures for militants, and just 15% noted that the Gaza Ministry of Health does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its reports. This omission fosters a misleading narrative that Israeli actions primarily result in civilian deaths.
Despite being so flawed that they are frequently revised, the statistics are cited by media and governments as accurate. The United Nations was forced to revise its estimate of Gaza casualties last May. International media cites statistics posted by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), repeating the claim that the vast majority of casualties (approximately 70%) are women and children. But, for the first time, the May 9 OCHA update included only positively identified casualties. The death toll for women and children was significantly reduced.
Fox explained that the system for reporting Gazan casualties was deeply flawed and easily manipulated. Hamas’ fatality lists are compiled using public Google forms — meaning anyone with the link can submit a name, with no verification whatsoever. “They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence at all,” Fox noted. “Now, they’re clearly trying to backpedal and delete the ones they can’t substantiate.”
In November, The Henry Jackson Society think tank published a report questioning the veracity of the GHM numbers, citing several inaccuracies:
- Men listed as women to inflate female fatalities.
- Adults registered as children.
- Inclusion of natural deaths in reporting. This figure is estimated at around 5,000 per year.
The report also cited the disproportionate number of deaths of fighting-age men. The IDF estimates that approximately 17,000 Hamas terrorists have been killed in the fighting.
“Data analysis indicates that proportionally most fatalities are men aged 15–45, contradicting claims that civilian populations are being disproportionately targeted,” the report noted. “This age demographic aligns closely with the expected profile of combatants, further supported by spikes in deaths of men reported by family sources rather than hospitals. This evidence suggests that many fatalities classified as civilian may be combatants, a distinction omitted from official reporting.”
“The IDF makes great efforts to estimate and consider potential civilian collateral damage in its strikes. The IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target children,” the IDF said in a statement.
Honest Reporting noted that even according to Hamas’ grossly inflated statistics, accusations that Israel is carrying out a genocide are absurd.
The numbers showed that the majority of the dead are military-age males, over 8,000 deaths are related to natural causes, and the real combatant-to-civilian ratio is likely 1:1, which is significantly better than most modern conflicts (1:9).
The Honest Reporting article also questioned the role of the Gaza Health Ministry, noting that it was under the full control of Hamas, a terrorist organization, making the GMH a biased source.
While many media cite the GMH numbers without question, even the United Nations was forced to revise its claims. In March, the U.N. Children’s Fund stated that 13,450 children had been killed in Gaza, citing figures from the GMH. Two months later, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released updated casualty figures putting the number of Gazan children who had died in the war as of April 30 at 7,797, a roughly 42% drop from the mid-March numbers. It also revised down the estimated number of women casualties from more than 9,500 to fewer than 5,000. The organization blamed the discrepancy on “the fog of war.”
Of course, the recent revision of the statistics did not prevent the UN from condemning the IDF for allegedly killing medics and relief workers. It should be noted that workers for “humanitarian organizations” and many UNRWA workers are Hamas members, with some being filmed taking part in the Oct.7 massacre of Israelis.
Many researchers have pointed out the flaws in casualty estimates, far more than can be discussed in this article. The purpose of this article is to present the issue and ask why the media continues to cite blatantly flawed statistics based on questionable claims made by the Hamas-run Health Ministry. These claims are obviously inaccurate and do not even attempt to omit armed Hamas combatants.
