LONDON: The casualty figures given by the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry in the first 17 days of the Israeli attack on the enclave were correct, a new study shows.
The British group Airwars said the Hamas-run ministry had identified 7,000 people killed by Israeli attacks in the first weeks of the conflict.
The ministry added that its own investigations, which evaluated 350 incidents, identified 3,000 victims during the period in question, 75 percent of whom were also identified by the ministry, so it believes the authorities' reporting is largely accurate.
Airwars, which provides independent verification of the impact of conflict on civilians, said it used a methodology that it also applies to collect figures from conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Libya and elsewhere.
The organisation added that there were well over 350 incidents during the period in question and that it would continue to investigate the conflict. However, it believes that statistics on Gaza have become less accurate over the course of the war, as the widespread destruction of the area makes the work of local authorities more difficult.
According to Emily Tripp, the group's leader, the death toll was already remarkable before the conflict began.
“More people are dying in each incident than in any other campaign,” she told the New York Times. “The intensity is greater than anything else we've documented.”
Numerous other international groups and experts also stated that the ministry's data were initially correct.
Mike Spagat, a professor at Royal Holloway College, University of London, who reviewed Airwars' findings, told the New York Times that the group's figures “capture a large part of the underlying reality” of what Gaza authorities reported in the early days of the war.
A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the United States also found no evidence by early November that the ministry's data contained serious errors.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who analyzed identification numbers from data collected by the ministry in October found “no obvious reason” to question them.
But in December, citing the collapse of infrastructure in the enclave, including hospitals and morgues, Gaza authorities announced that they would rely on “reliable media sources” to report casualty figures, as well as on information that could be gathered on the ground.
According to the ministry's latest figures, at least 39,000 people have been killed since the Israeli invasion began in October.
Israel has frequently questioned the ministry's figures due to its proximity to Hamas. Israeli allies in the West have also expressed doubts. US President Joe Biden once said he had “no confidence in the number (of deaths) given by the Palestinians”. US officials then said the data was more accurate than initially thought.
