From someone in a social media discussion:
85,000 children dead in Yemen due to their civil war. More than 10,000 dead in Gaza since October.
Which got the reply:
The 10,000 number for Gaza is an exaggeration. Hamas is a terrorist organization that pulls numbers out of a hat. The only way the 10,000 could be accurate is if they are counting their teenage soldiers as children.
My response:
1) HOW MANY DEAD CHILDREN?
It is so unusual to have precise numbers in a conflict it made me doubt the figures too. So I did some light research. Checking with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the medical, reporting and conflict resolution sectors, plus the UN and independent aid agencies gives some insight.
These figures are validated, verified and the records independently checked. Trusted news organisations have looked into how they come about and are content.
The US government challenged the numbers because israel’s were one tenth of the Palestinians’ numbers. Israel was wrong and released much bigger numbers nearly the same as the Palestinians were giving out.
The numbers you see online of total deaths and child deaths and confirmed and trustworthy.
The IDF claims they are killing just two civilians for each combatant. They give no more details at all than that. The US says the IDF has killed between 5000 and 9000 Hamas combatants, meaning a ratio of between 1:2 and 1:4. Let’s assume the IDF figure is accurate, and not as flawed as their previous numbers.
Let us also pretend that ratio applies to the use of child soldiers, regardless of how young so including babies.
That means there are at least 6,600 confirmed civilian child deaths. Is that an acceptable number?
By the way, teenage soldiers are still children. Child soldiers are victims too.
2) ACCURACY OF THE NUMBERS
The principal source is the Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MoH). On the face of it, probably the least reliable of sources since it is run by Hamas. However…
In December, when the MoH reported 15,899 dead, the Times of Israel reported the IDF confirmed 5,000 combatants + 10,000 civilian = 15,000 deaths. So the IDF is giving similar numbers. This is far higher than the Israeli government had been claiming in November; it is the Israeli government that has had to revise its reporting, upwards by a factor of ten! It later said this was because they were providing numbers of confirmed terrorists, not Palestinians. This discrepancy was used by Joe Biden to erroneously say the MoH figures were wrong.
MoH uses a centralised computer system with each hospital providing details of each casualty and corpse. They release figures every few hours. When the US queried the details in October, the MoH provided the raw data including names, ID numbers and so on. At that time it was 6,747 named dead and 281 unidentified.
The data is shared with the totally separate health ministry in the West Bank. It confirms the numbers itself and says it trusts the figures provided. The ID numbers for Gaza, West Bank and Israel are held by the Israeli Population Registry Office and so can be validated.
The MoH has a long track record of being reliable, according to the World Health Organization and the UN. In conflicts in 2008, 2014 and 2021, the MoH’s figures at the time matched the UN’s own subsequent investigation figures to within 4%. Israel’s own figures for the 2014 war were 2125 killed, UN said 2251 and MoH said 2310 – so within 9% of Israel’s estimate. When Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem tallied up deaths in 2014, it made it 2185 (9% fewer) but said such differences were “fairly normal” and down to different ways of counting.
3) WHO TRUSTS THE NUMBERS?
Médecins Sans Frontières confirm the numbers (plus detail attacks and airstrikes on medical facilities and staff).
Airwars – a charity that investigates civilian deaths in conflicts – has done a specific analysis of scores of these records to check them and confirmed them. They have now checked and independently confirmed the details of over 900 of the bodies.
The charity Every Casualty Counts studies death tolls in wars and they say all they found was one person recorded twice in the data.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed the data statistically, such as correlating ID numbers and age, and could find no evidence of falsification.
Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director: “These figures are professionally done and have proven to be reliable”.
The Guardian newspaper, generally considered a very reliable source for such information, are content the numbers are realistic. The BBC has also investigated and reported on the numbers with the same conclusion. Ditto for Reuters.
Note that these numbers are only the known deaths. They do not include people missing or bodies still buried under rubble and not reported. The Palestinian Red Crescent and US government’s assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs say the numbers must be higher than those published.
It is also only confirmed dead. Tens of thousands have had hospital treatment, many with life-changing wounds. That will include children, and have created orphans.