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Original poster

Hamas ‘quietly drops’ thousands of deaths from casualty figures

86 replies

Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 12:42

Article in the Telegraph (unfortunately behind a paywall).

New research shows that Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its Gaza war casualty figures.
Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based non-profit organisation Honest Reporting, said that Hamas’s March 2025 casualty update had removed thousands of people it previously listed as having been killed last year.
“Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified – again,” Mr Aizenberg wrote.

The casualty lists are released as PDFs by the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health, which has been cited by international media as a source for fatality figures in the enclave since the start of the war.
A report by the Henry Jackson Society in December said that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict had probably been inflated by Hamas in order to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people.

Andrew Fox, the author of the report, said the latest deletions are likely to have been an attempt by Hamas to retain credibility.
“We knew there were rafts of errors in their reporting,” Mr Fox said. “There’s a reasonable explanation in that their computer systems went down in November 2023, so it’s been challenging for them to report accurately, but the lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable.”
He added: “The UN also just takes Hamas’s figures and publishes them with a note stating the figures are unconfirmed.”
The Hamas lists contain information such as names and ID numbers, and can be filled in by anyone with a link to the Google form for the document.
Hamas will “have gone through the list, trying to make it as convincing as possible. They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence whatsoever”, explained Mr Fox. “So what I’m guessing they’re trying to do is thin out the names they cannot substantiate at all.”

Mr Fox, a former British paratrooper who has worked with Mr Aizenberg on previous research, said the teams use the publicly available Hamas data and cross-check it name by name.
“Salo’s research would be looking for names that were on previous lists but have now disappeared,” Mr Fox explained. “Hamas releases lists as PDFs, so it’s harder to do comparisons but we transfer names to an Excel sheet to do a mass comparison this way.”

About 72% of fatalities aged 13-55 are men, which is the rough age range of Hamas combatants, Mr Fox said. “We know that Hamas uses child soldiers, and these statistics show clearly that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men.”
In previous conflicts, Hamas figures have often been corroborated by external organisations, Mr Fox said.
The Henry Jackson Society’s December report said: “The ministry of health, operating under Hamas, has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.
“This has led to a narrative where the Israel Defense Forces are portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians, while the actual numbers suggest a significant proportion of the dead are combatants.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/01/hamas-drops-thousands-of-deaths-from-casualty-figurures/

OP posts:
Original poster
Twiglets1 · 04/04/2025 08:25

Sleepinggreyhounds · 04/04/2025 07:55

@Twiglets1 i chose to get involved with a discussion on measurement as it’s something I know about professionally and find it frustrating that there are expectations of accuracy when that isn’t feasible whoever the source are. And to remind those posting these numbers are people. I don’t think I’m adding to the distraction.

No one needs reminding that these numbers represent real people.

But if you are choosing to engage in a discussion about the numbers, how can you say "this arguing detracts from the fact that a huge number of Palestinians have died" - if you don't think we should be discussing numbers, don't engage.

OP posts:
Hengaoxingrenshini · 04/04/2025 08:18

Batmanisaplaceinturkey · 03/04/2025 22:02

This x 100.

The op might as well start quoting GB news or the Daily Fail next.

Disgusting attempt to minimise the massacre of people. Palestinians are just vermin to some.

Show quote history

And Israel and it's people are the devil incarnate to some.... As proven by the hundreds of marches in London since 7/10. The first being on 8/10...

Why does it have to one way or the other. Can we not say that Hamas is an evil terrorist organisation who clearly state they want to rid the earth of Jews. And treat their own people shamefully,

And also say that in a war against an agressor bent on their destruction, Israel get things wrong,and innocent people get hurt, and awful side effect of war.

Millions of innocent people died in WW2, shall we suggest that negated the need for the Nazis to be stopped?

TomeTome · 04/04/2025 08:05

Why are 13 to 18 year olds described as “men”, they are children surely? Changing the definition of a child to massage figures quite so blatantly is uncalled for.

Sleepinggreyhounds · 04/04/2025 07:55

@Twiglets1 i chose to get involved with a discussion on measurement as it’s something I know about professionally and find it frustrating that there are expectations of accuracy when that isn’t feasible whoever the source are. And to remind those posting these numbers are people. I don’t think I’m adding to the distraction.

Original poster
Twiglets1 · 04/04/2025 06:36

@Sleepinggreyhounds if you think that arguing about numbers detracts from the fact that a huge number of Palestinians have been killed then don’t join in this conversation. You are adding to the distraction, according to your logic.

I don’t think that talking about numbers detracts from all the bloodshed. I think numbers are important and that even in the chaos of warfare it’s important to try to understand the data. There have been claims on these threads that a majority of those being targeted by the IDF are women & children. Yet Hamas’s own data now reveals that 72% of those being killed are in fact males aged 13-55 (& they do use child soldiers).

Being accurate about the numbers and demographics of Palestinians being killed in no way detracts from the fact that thousands of innocent people have suffered or are suffering. It’s an emotional subject but facts need to be reported.

OP posts:
Original poster
Twiglets1 · 04/04/2025 06:13

Batmanisaplaceinturkey · 03/04/2025 22:02

This x 100.

The op might as well start quoting GB news or the Daily Fail next.

Disgusting attempt to minimise the massacre of people. Palestinians are just vermin to some.

Show quote history

The source I quoted from is irrelevant. Hamas themselves have admitted their numbers were wrong by thousands & adjusted them downwards. What does it matter if it is reported by the Telegraph (as I linked to) or another source? Unless you would prefer some facts to be buried by the media just because they put into doubt the narrative of Israel deliberately targeting women and young children.

Of course it’s horrific that thousands have been killed by the IDF and Gaza flattened - no one is disputing that on this thread. But if there has been over reporting of deaths of women & children by Hamas that is information that is important to acknowledge. I don’t know why so many people on these threads rush to defend Hamas at every opportunity. Think about who you are defending- it is Hamas not Palestinian civilians.

OP posts:
Odras · 03/04/2025 22:41

Yes I don’t trust Hamas at all but you would have to be blind to not see that Gaza has been flattened. It is clear as day that thousands of children and other civilians have died and many more are suffering. It’s horrific.

In hindsight, and as much as I criticised it at the time, the Biden administration was at least making some of the right noises about the Israeli government’s actions. They are now emboldened by Trump. They aren’t even pretending to be abiding by international laws anymore.

Codlingmoths · 03/04/2025 22:22

You don’t have to believe Hamas to be entirely completely totally confident that many thousands of women and children have been murdered by the Israeli army, as well as peacekeepers. It’s factually reported by eye witnesses, it’s filmed and on the news. I expect most of us here in the west think Hamas is evil and must be got rid of, but what the Israeli army is doing is horror on a scale not seen for decades.

Sleepinggreyhounds · 03/04/2025 22:19

Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 21:55

Where is your compassion for the innocent Israeli people killed on October 7th? I feel compassion for them & for the innocent Palestinian civilians caught up in this conflict.

it doesn’t indicate a lack of compassion when Hamas are criticised or the accuracy of their numbers questioned.

The number of deaths and the demographics of the people being killed are important and are of interest to people. No idea why you would want to close down any discussion of this issue by pretending you are more compassionate than others on this thread when you don’t know the first thing about us..

Show quote history

But no-one criticized (quite rightly) Israel’s initial incorrect estimates of deaths on 7/10. Any errors were seen as an inevitable result of chaos and confusion and quibbling about numbers would have been dehumanizing, disrespectful and minimizing. Why is it different for Palestinians? Estimating mortality in conflict is a highly complex demographic analysis- there is usually a mix of under-reporting of deaths that are never recorded and over-reporting with some people being included twice from different sources. Getting a full estimate requires meticulously triangulating multiple records (which Fox certainly hasn’t done). Until that happens (if it ever does) we work with estimates from imperfect sources and all numbers are taken with a pinch of salt regardless of how trustworthy or otherwise those in charge of the estimates are.
This arguing detracts from the fact that a huge number of Palestinians have died, including many, many women and children, and will continue to die both from violence and the aid blockade, which Israel is responsible for.

Original poster
Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 22:03

Odras · 03/04/2025 21:55

@PurpleChrayn that is terrible about your DH and toddler. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. We can and should call out the Israeli administration’s actions without resorting to antisemitism.

Edited

Agreed. It’s one thing to criticise the Israel government & they have certainly done things that many of us have legitimate concerns about. However, that is no excuse for antisemitism.

OP posts:
Batmanisaplaceinturkey · 03/04/2025 22:02

Martymcfly24 · 03/04/2025 15:31

Andrew Fox
The Henry Jackson Society
Honest Reporting

Do you think these sources are completely unbiased and impartial?

This x 100.

The op might as well start quoting GB news or the Daily Fail next.

Disgusting attempt to minimise the massacre of people. Palestinians are just vermin to some.

Original poster
Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 22:00

PurpleChrayn · 03/04/2025 18:11

The fact that so many were willing to believe these figures says a lot about the amount of anti-Israeli sentiment and antisemitism that’s rife in the world

What a lot of people don’t seem to realise when they peddle Hamas lies is the effect it’s had on Jews outside of Israel. My visibly Jewish husband and our toddler were heckled off a bus last year, and security has tightened at my daughter’s school. The atmosphere in our city is extremely tense; I haven’t been into the centre since October 7. Many people in my community are planning to move to Israel to escape it, including myself and my family.

Very sorry to hear this is affecting Jews outside Israel to the extent that you and your family no longer feel comfortable in your own community.

OP posts:
Odras · 03/04/2025 21:55

@PurpleChrayn that is terrible about your DH and toddler. Those people should be ashamed of themselves. We can and should call out the Israeli administration’s actions without resorting to antisemitism.

Original poster
Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 21:55

Buzzingwiththebees · 03/04/2025 20:44

We see the footage of the bombardment and we struggle to imagine life in Gaza when there is so much more we don't see. We don't see the women who are using dirt rags salvaged from the rubble to use as sanitary towels because Israel has blocked aid including sanitary products from coming into the strip.
We don't see the mothers who have resorted to using plastic carrier bags as a substitute for nappies even if it is causing painful rashes on their babie.
We don't see the fathers who go out in search for food and come back to find their family dead under the rubble of their home.
The mother who has to make the tough decision to leave the fate of her bed bound father in the hands of others as she only has the strength to carry her small disabled child when the evacuation order comes.
The untold suffering you don't see on the news, yet so many come on to these threads with little to no compassion. I think tasteless quibbling over numbers does sum it up.

Where is your compassion for the innocent Israeli people killed on October 7th? I feel compassion for them & for the innocent Palestinian civilians caught up in this conflict.

it doesn’t indicate a lack of compassion when Hamas are criticised or the accuracy of their numbers questioned.

The number of deaths and the demographics of the people being killed are important and are of interest to people. No idea why you would want to close down any discussion of this issue by pretending you are more compassionate than others on this thread when you don’t know the first thing about us..

OP posts:
Buzzingwiththebees · 03/04/2025 20:44

We see the footage of the bombardment and we struggle to imagine life in Gaza when there is so much more we don't see. We don't see the women who are using dirt rags salvaged from the rubble to use as sanitary towels because Israel has blocked aid including sanitary products from coming into the strip.
We don't see the mothers who have resorted to using plastic carrier bags as a substitute for nappies even if it is causing painful rashes on their babie.
We don't see the fathers who go out in search for food and come back to find their family dead under the rubble of their home.
The mother who has to make the tough decision to leave the fate of her bed bound father in the hands of others as she only has the strength to carry her small disabled child when the evacuation order comes.
The untold suffering you don't see on the news, yet so many come on to these threads with little to no compassion. I think tasteless quibbling over numbers does sum it up.

Buzzingwiththebees · 03/04/2025 20:33

A dear friend of mine has lost many members of her extended family including neices, nephews and cousins. One of her cousins was killed after Israel renewed their bombardment, leaving behind three primary school aged children. The house they were living in was bombed and then the shelter they moved to was also bombed. I think it's so easy for people to come on here with a gotcha attitude who have no connection or links with the Palestinian suffering. These are real people who are living a indescribable nightmare.

Sleepinggreyhounds · 03/04/2025 20:26

It took Israel around 3-4 months to issue definitive figures on the number who had died on 7/ 10 (and that was in an area of no ongoing conflict).
Estimates of death for the Gulf war still vary by 10s of thousands depending on which (reliable) source you look at.
Yet Hamas are criticize for reducing their estimate by less than 10%. I’m fine with Hamas being criticized - they’re a bunch of evil terrorists. But it’s being done to minimize the horrors that civilians have faced. I don’t know the exact figures any more than anyone else but have seen the drone footage of utter devastation and rubble, and heard the testimony of international aid workers. I also get texts from a friend who is a nurse there (when Wi-Fi allows). And I do know the mortality is huge, with many of the victims being women and children. I also know there is no food and little safe water there now. Families have split to try and get aid and now can’t travel to reunite. So it seems really tasteless to quibble over numbers, particularly as we haven’t even begun to count those dying from infectious disease and hunger.

quantumbutterfly · 03/04/2025 20:18

PurpleChrayn · 03/04/2025 18:11

The fact that so many were willing to believe these figures says a lot about the amount of anti-Israeli sentiment and antisemitism that’s rife in the world

What a lot of people don’t seem to realise when they peddle Hamas lies is the effect it’s had on Jews outside of Israel. My visibly Jewish husband and our toddler were heckled off a bus last year, and security has tightened at my daughter’s school. The atmosphere in our city is extremely tense; I haven’t been into the centre since October 7. Many people in my community are planning to move to Israel to escape it, including myself and my family.

and this is why I stand with Israel. If there was as much noise at the various demonstrations in support of freeing hostages and removing hamas control of Gaza as opposed to emboldening those who want to dismantle Israel and exercise their indoctrinated hatred of jewish people I might believe they were 'peaceful'.

ScrollingLeaves · 03/04/2025 19:26

Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 12:42

Article in the Telegraph (unfortunately behind a paywall).

New research shows that Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of deaths from its Gaza war casualty figures.
Salo Aizenberg, from the US-based non-profit organisation Honest Reporting, said that Hamas’s March 2025 casualty update had removed thousands of people it previously listed as having been killed last year.
“Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified – again,” Mr Aizenberg wrote.

The casualty lists are released as PDFs by the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health, which has been cited by international media as a source for fatality figures in the enclave since the start of the war.
A report by the Henry Jackson Society in December said that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza conflict had probably been inflated by Hamas in order to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent people.

Andrew Fox, the author of the report, said the latest deletions are likely to have been an attempt by Hamas to retain credibility.
“We knew there were rafts of errors in their reporting,” Mr Fox said. “There’s a reasonable explanation in that their computer systems went down in November 2023, so it’s been challenging for them to report accurately, but the lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable.”
He added: “The UN also just takes Hamas’s figures and publishes them with a note stating the figures are unconfirmed.”
The Hamas lists contain information such as names and ID numbers, and can be filled in by anyone with a link to the Google form for the document.
Hamas will “have gone through the list, trying to make it as convincing as possible. They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence whatsoever”, explained Mr Fox. “So what I’m guessing they’re trying to do is thin out the names they cannot substantiate at all.”

Mr Fox, a former British paratrooper who has worked with Mr Aizenberg on previous research, said the teams use the publicly available Hamas data and cross-check it name by name.
“Salo’s research would be looking for names that were on previous lists but have now disappeared,” Mr Fox explained. “Hamas releases lists as PDFs, so it’s harder to do comparisons but we transfer names to an Excel sheet to do a mass comparison this way.”

About 72% of fatalities aged 13-55 are men, which is the rough age range of Hamas combatants, Mr Fox said. “We know that Hamas uses child soldiers, and these statistics show clearly that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men.”
In previous conflicts, Hamas figures have often been corroborated by external organisations, Mr Fox said.
The Henry Jackson Society’s December report said: “The ministry of health, operating under Hamas, has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.
“This has led to a narrative where the Israel Defense Forces are portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians, while the actual numbers suggest a significant proportion of the dead are combatants.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/01/hamas-drops-thousands-of-deaths-from-casualty-figurures/

The article says,
“Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified – again,” Mr Aizenberg wrote.

Re: the numbers were falsified yet again
It is confusing to me that the writer says the numbers were “falsified”.

It appears they weren’t falsified but were wrong and then subsequently corrected; or else that they decided to omit certain recorded deaths after all because some vital information was lacking.

Meanwhile the Lancet Feb 8 2025 wrote that there was likely under reporting of deaths (their period of analysis Oct 7 to June 30 2024).
www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02678-3/fulltext

Martymcfly24 · 03/04/2025 18:30

CrunchyKnees · 03/04/2025 18:06

Do you think Hamas and their supporters are completely unbiased and impartial?

That’s who we’re getting information about what’s going on in Gaza from.

If you look through the Honest Reporting website in particular, they have exposed a lot of anti Israel bias on MSM backed up with facts.

Surely that’s an integral part of journalism, reporting factually, not eschewing information to suit personal viewpoints or agendas?

The story referred to in ‘the photo that started it all’ on the Honest Reporting website site is outrageous:

honestreporting.com/the-photo-that-started-it-all/

Andrew Fox is a former British paratrooper (and he’s not Jewish), and research fellow specialising in the Middle East, who’s shadowed the IDF in Gaza during the war. I think he’s qualified to give an experienced opinion over others who’ve never even stepped foot in the region.

Show quote history

I absolutely do not think that Hamas are honest at all times. There is motivation for inflated figures and obviously they are a terrorist organization.

Nobody and no organization (especially media)are impartial and unbiased, conscious or unconsciously we all do.

https://aoav.org.uk/2024/flawed-critique-how-andrew-foxs-report-for-the-henry-jackson-society-on-gaza-death-toll-lacks-evidence-for-key-claims/

I thought this report was interesting it acknowledges the limitations of the report while also speaking about the truths it did uncover.

Flawed critique: how Andrew Fox's report on Gaza death toll for the Henry Jackson Society lacks evidence for key claims - AOAV

A review of Andrew Fox’s Henry Jackson Society report on Gaza death toll figures finds limited evidence for claims of MoH data manipulation, highlighting errors as random rather than systematic, and somewhat more evidence for media complicity.

https://aoav.org.uk/2024/flawed-critique-how-andrew-foxs-report-for-the-henry-jackson-society-on-gaza-death-toll-lacks-evidence-for-key-claims/

PurpleChrayn · 03/04/2025 18:11

The fact that so many were willing to believe these figures says a lot about the amount of anti-Israeli sentiment and antisemitism that’s rife in the world

What a lot of people don’t seem to realise when they peddle Hamas lies is the effect it’s had on Jews outside of Israel. My visibly Jewish husband and our toddler were heckled off a bus last year, and security has tightened at my daughter’s school. The atmosphere in our city is extremely tense; I haven’t been into the centre since October 7. Many people in my community are planning to move to Israel to escape it, including myself and my family.

CrunchyKnees · 03/04/2025 18:06

Martymcfly24 · 03/04/2025 15:31

Andrew Fox
The Henry Jackson Society
Honest Reporting

Do you think these sources are completely unbiased and impartial?

Do you think Hamas and their supporters are completely unbiased and impartial?

That’s who we’re getting information about what’s going on in Gaza from.

If you look through the Honest Reporting website in particular, they have exposed a lot of anti Israel bias on MSM backed up with facts.

Surely that’s an integral part of journalism, reporting factually, not eschewing information to suit personal viewpoints or agendas?

The story referred to in ‘the photo that started it all’ on the Honest Reporting website site is outrageous:

honestreporting.com/the-photo-that-started-it-all/

Andrew Fox is a former British paratrooper (and he’s not Jewish), and research fellow specialising in the Middle East, who’s shadowed the IDF in Gaza during the war. I think he’s qualified to give an experienced opinion over others who’ve never even stepped foot in the region.

caringcarer · 03/04/2025 17:31

Doesn't surprise me at all. Never believe the word of terrorists.

Original poster
Twiglets1 · 03/04/2025 17:12

You can never say for sure any source is completely impartial @Martymcfly24 but what they are reporting on seems to be something that can be objectively said to be true or false - that Hamas have revised their own figures downward.

It’s a factual thing.

OP posts: