"Lancet Study Finds Gaza Death Toll Likely Around 200,000—8% of The Population" – Professor Francis Boyle
"Historically, I put this as a second Nakba" – Professor Francis Boyle
I cannot recommend highly enough listening to Rachel Bevin’s interview with Professor Francis Boyle.
This is Rachel’s description for their discussion:
A new report from the Lancet medical journal found that the true death toll from Israel's bombardment and blockade of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could exceed 186,000—five times higher than the 37,396 reported last month.
Prof. Francis Boyle, a human rights lawyer who represented Bosnia in a genocide case at the ICJ and won two orders in their favor, noted that these figures don't come as a surprise, and the true death toll could even be as high as 500,000 Palestinians killed so far by Israel's genocide in Gaza, when all deaths from disease, starvation, etc. are factored in.
Professor Boyle queries, “Is history repeating itself as Israel provides a textbook example of the psychological term, “transference”?
The following is the most recent report published by The Lancet with regard to the death toll in Gaza under continuous attack by Israeli forces.
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential
By Rasha Khatib • Martin McKee • Salim Yusuf
Published:July 05, 2024 • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01169-3
By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.1
The Ministry's figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services,2 the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry,3 which found claims of data fabrication implausible.4
Collecting data is becoming increasingly difficult for the Gaza Health Ministry due to the destruction of much of the infrastructure.5 The Ministry has had to augment its usual reporting, based on people dying in its hospitals or brought in dead, with information from reliable media sources and first responders. This change has inevitably degraded the detailed data recorded previously. Consequently, the Gaza Health Ministry now reports separately the number of unidentified bodies among the total death toll. As of May 10, 2024, 30% of the 35 091 deaths were unidentified.1
Some officials and news agencies have used this development, designed to improve data quality, to undermine the veracity of the data. However, the number of reported deaths is likely an underestimate. The non-governmental organisation Airwars undertakes detailed assessments of incidents in the Gaza Strip and often finds that not all names of identifiable victims are included in the Ministry's list.6 Furthermore, the UN estimates that, by Feb 29, 2024, 35% of buildings in the Gaza Strip had been destroyed,5 so the number of bodies still buried in the rubble is likely substantial, with estimates of more than 10 000.7
Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict; destroyed health-care infrastructure; severe shortages of food, water, and shelter; the population's inability to flee to safe places; and the loss of funding to UNRWA, one of the very few humanitarian organisations still active in the Gaza Strip.8
In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death toll was 28 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be between 58 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85 750 deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024.10
An immediate and urgent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip is essential, accompanied by measures to enable the distribution of medical supplies, food, clean water, and other resources for basic human needs. At the same time, there is a need to record the scale and nature of suffering in this conflict. Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war. It is also a legal requirement. The interim measures set out by the International Court of Justice in January, 2024, require Israel to “take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of … the Genocide Convention”.11 The Gaza Health Ministry is the only organisation counting the dead. Furthermore, these data will be crucial for post-war recovery, restoring infrastructure, and planning humanitarian aid.
MM is a member of the editorial board of the Israel Journal of Health Policy Research and of the International Advisory Committee of the Israel National Institute for Health Policy Research. MM was co-chair of the Institute's 2016 6th International Jerusalem Conference on Health Policy, but writes in a personal capacity. He also collaborates with researchers in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. RK and SY declare no competing interests. The authors would like to acknowledge study team members Shofiqul Islam and Safa Noreen for their contribution to collecting and managing the data for this Correspondence.
Editorial note: The Lancet Group takes a neutral position with respect to territorial claims in published text and institutional affiliations.
This online publication has been corrected. The corrected version first appeared at thelancet.com on July 10, 2024
References
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Reported impact snapshot. Gaza Strip.
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/reported-impact-snapshot-gaza-strip-19-june-2024
Date: June 19, 2024
Date accessed: June 21, 2024
Prothero M
Israeli Intelligence has deemed Hamas-run health ministry's death toll figures generally accurate.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3w4w7/israeli-intelligence-health-ministry-death-toll
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 2, 2024
Huynh BQ • Chin ET • Spiegel PB
No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Lancet.2024;403:23-24
Jamaluddine Z • Checchi F • Campbell OMR
Excess mortality in Gaza: Oct 7–26, 2023.
Lancet.2023;402:2189-2190
UNOSAT
UNOSAT Gaza Strip comprehensive building & housing unit damage assessment, March 2024.
https://unosat.org/products/3804
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 2, 2024
Airwars
Israel and Gaza.
https://airwars.org/conflict/israel-and-gaza-2023/
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 3, 2024
UN Office Geneva
10 000 people feared buried under the rubble in Gaza.
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 3, 2024
Reuters
More countries pause funds for UN Palestinian agency.
https://www.reuters.com/world/britain-italy-finland-pause-funding-un-refugee-agency-gaza-2024-01-27/
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 2, 2024
Geneva. Declaration Secretariat. Global burden of armed violence.
https://www.refworld.org/reference/research/gds/2008/en/64390
Date: 2008
Date accessed: April 10, 2024
Jamaluddine Z • Chen Z • Abukmail H • et al.
Crisis in Gaza: scenario-based health impact projections.
https://aoav.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/gaza_projections_report.pdf
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 1, 2024
International Court of Justice
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.
https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf
Date: 2024
Date accessed: May 3, 2024
Copyright
© 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirect
If you haven’t already, I recommend the following related post with an interview with and article by Dr. Les Roberts, an epidemiologist and Professor Emeritus at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, who has spent his career documenting death and disease in conflict zones, including in Rwanda, the Congo and Iraq. It is Dr Robert’s opinion that the death toll in Gaza has to be much higher than is being reported.
Given that vast areas of what was densely populated Gaza with hundreds of thousands of people living in high rises that have been completely destroyed by Israeli bombing, the death toll can only be much greater than is being reported, in my lay opinion.
The following aerial footage from April 2024 provides a snapshot of some of the destruction and rubble in the southern Gaza Strip’s main city of Khan Yunis.
It’s not just mass genocide of Palestinians and other residents that continues to be carried out in Gaza, cultural genocide is also well in progress as referenced in this brief Channel 4 video published in February 2024:
Video footage retrieved from an Israeli drone shows the moments before four apparently unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli air attacks in Gaza. When you watch this please keep in mind that the UK, US and other countries purchase Israeli technology that is “tested” in Gaza. I will be blogging about this in a separate post soon.
Since the original video below entitled, Gaza drone video shows killing of Palestinians in Israeli air attack uploaded to YouTube by AlJazeera on March 22nd is restricted, I downloaded it to post here so that it is archived.
Related posts:
Is this about acquiring beach front property.
There is now a retraction ‘request’ of this article from the American Jewish Committee:
https://www.ajc.org/news/ajc-urges-retraction-of-lancet-letter-with-unsubstantiated-projected-gaza-death-toll
I’m sure they will get their way so save copies of the Lancet article.