As the Israel-Hamas conflict continues to intensify, the Gaza health ministry—run by Hamas—has reportedly removed 1,852 names from its official list of war fatalities since October. According to an investigative report by Sky News, the names were taken off the list due to several discrepancies, including cases of natural death, imprisonment, or individuals who were mistakenly presumed dead.
The current death toll stands at 50,609, down from a previously higher number. Notably, 97% of the removed names had been submitted through an online form created for families to report missing or deceased loved ones, particularly when no body was recovered.
Zaher Al Wahidi, the head of the health ministry’s statistics team, explained to Sky News, “We realised that a lot of people [submitted via the form] died a natural death. Maybe they were near an explosion and they had a heart attack, or [living in destroyed] houses caused them pneumonia or hypothermia. All these cases we don’t [attribute to] the war.”
He acknowledged that some families submitted false claims, either intentionally or due to a lack of information. Wahidi stated that some individuals listed as dead were found to be alive and imprisoned, while others had died of causes unrelated to the conflict.
This isn’t the first time such an audit has been conducted. Between August and September 2023, 1,441 names were removed from the list, 54% of which came from hospital morgue records rather than the online system. Wahidi said the health ministry initiated a formal auditing process after receiving multiple complaints from individuals mistakenly listed as deceased.
A major issue, Wahidi admitted, was the lack of a proper verification process for submissions via the online form prior to October. Out of the 1,295 names removed during the recent audit, 474 were later re-added after judicial verification.
Commenting on the findings, Professor Michael Spagat, chair of the civilian casualty watchdog Every Casualty Counts, said, “This does cause me to downgrade the quality of the earlier lists, definitely below where I thought they were.” He added, “They basically said that they were posting these things provisionally pending investigation… but they weren’t hiding it either.”
The health ministry says it will now continue the judicial review process for each case and tighten its reporting mechanism going forward.
