Talk:Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war

Table

@Onceinawhile, once again, I've tried to use a table to make sense of a lot of confusing data. Please check it out and give me feedback. :-) VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:19, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Vice regent: an excellent table, very valuable. Hopefully we can add more data over time. The preponderance of sources you have shown gives a result which ties to my own working assumption. My simple working assumption is that the number of combatants killed can be no more than 20% of the direct casualties, which is arrived at by taking the number of non-elderly adult men killed and subtracting the number of women killed (on the assumption that the women killed were almost all civilians and there should be a corresponding number of civilian men killed alongside). And then subtract a further amount to account for the Israeli military’s bad data or immoral assessment of what is a combatant (e.g. targeted strikes on journalists, poets, aid workers, policemen, etc).

What this doesn’t do is account for all the deaths which were caused by the Israeli military’s actions which led to disease, famine, lack of medical facilities etc, which presumably were 95%+ civilian.

One day we will find out what non-combatant casualty value was put into the Israeli military’s calculations. Onceinawhile (talk) 06:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Combatant casualties

This article is missing any discussion of combatant casualties in the Gaza strip. Please rectify this 93.173.53.240 (talk) 08:37, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Your request does not appear to be related to this article. Perhaps try the read aloud option in your web browser. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The recently added table at the top of Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war#Civilian to military ratio may answer their query. Until recently it has been hard to find any reliable source for this. We still don't have accurate figures but this at least gives a reasonable range of estimates. NadVolum (talk) 10:59, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@NadVolum any feedback on that? I don't think we should all multiple IDF claims to that table as that would be undue. We should take the latest Israeli claim as representative of their position, so the June entry should be enough.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 17:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. Actually they came out with a claim of 17,000 in August. [1]. NadVolum (talk) 20:00, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Note that that source is considered unreliable about WP:PIA topics, so I would recommend finding a different one. Smallangryplanet (talk) 15:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I thought the cite was relible enough for the IDF claim but I've changed it to Associated Press instead. NadVolum (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland Please be civil, that was rude and dismissive. --Scharb (talk) 19:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Scharb, "Your request does not appear to be related to this article." was an objectively true statement given the mismatch between the statement and the article contents. The rest is a joke, but it's also good practical advice nowadays given the dramatic increase in error rates in comprehension since the introduction of smartphones. You are free to consider it rude or dismissive but don't expect me to agree or care. Next time, if something similar happens, I will suggest the party tries using NotebookLM to interact with the article. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:20, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Most "Casualties of X War" articles on Wikipedia do list combatant casualty estimates/claims if available.

In many wars, those estimates and claims are debatable or come from one side or the other. Each side's estimates are presented neutrally.

This article does not meet Wikipedia standards. Scharb (talk) 15:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That is a useless statement. NadVolum (talk) 16:39, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Read what the IP wrote, "This article is missing any discussion of combatant casualties in the Gaza strip." Look at the state of the article when they wrote it here at 2024-10-09T03:24:13. Observe the 'Civilian to military ratio' section present at the time. Then look at the article now and review your comments to see whether they make sense. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

9:1 civilian to combatant ratio myth

Article states "However, it is lower than the UN's estimate of a 9:1 civilian to militant casualty rate worldwide". This ratio is a well known myth and should be removed for factual inaccuracy. In reality the average civilian to combatant ratio is approximately 1:1. https://aoav.org.uk/2024/netanyahu-got-it-wrong-before-the-us-congress-idfs-clean-performance-in-gaza-is-a-lie/ https://gwern.net/doc/politics/2010-roberts.pdf 157.131.130.26 (talk) 01:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

The citation says "RAMESH RAJASINGHAM, Director of Coordination of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the Secretary-General’s report (document S/2022/381) outlines the grim reality that civilians bear the brunt of suffering in armed conflict.  Conflict continued to cause widespread civilian death last year, notably in densely populated areas, where civilians accounted for 90 per cent of the casualties when explosive weapons were used, compared to 10 per cent in other areas."

The sentence in the article does not accurately reflect the source, what do others think? Selfstudier (talk) 09:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, the UN should not have stuck that headline in - it does not reflect what the delegates said. I think we can agreethat Gaza isa heavily populated though so a higher figure is to be expected. But of course Netanyahu was lying as the ratio is nowhere near like he said and he knew it. I think it was a Freudian slip saying "the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare." NadVolum (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

That source quotes a scholarly source[2] that casts doubt on the 9:1 ratio. It might be helpful to explain briefly in the article that this is a common claim, but doubted by scholars.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 01:52, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2024

Change "A study published in The Lancet estimated that indirect deaths in Gaza could be expected to be four times higher than the confirmed death toll, reaching 186,000 people by the end of June 2024." to "A correspondence published in The Lancet estimated that the total death toll arising from the conflict up to June could eventually reach 186,000 people when both direct and indirect deaths are accounted for."

Reason: The Lancet article, when read in full, predicts that the total death toll arising from conflict up to June could reach 186,000 in the "in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases" (This is the definition they provide for indirect deaths). There is no specific timeline provided for the estimate of 186,000 total direct and indirect deaths. The suggestion of "Study" --> "Correspondence" has been provided as it was not a study, but a correspondence. 114.76.124.219 (talk) 09:38, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Done. NadVolum (talk) 12:53, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2024 (2)

Change "In July 2024, the British medical journal The Lancet issued a warning that the actual death toll in Gaza from both direct and indirect causes could be more than 186,000." to "In July 2024, correspondence published in British medical journal The Lancet issued a warning that casualty figures based on direct death tolls alone significantly underestimated the total, and conservatively estimated that the conflict up to June would eventually result in up to 186,000 deaths when direct and indirect deaths were accounted for."

Reason: The Lancet correspondence estimate was a prediction of eventual future deaths (Both direct and indirect) that would result from the conflict up to June when indirect deaths included those "in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases." No time frame was provided for this eventual total death number. In addition the estimate was put forward by correspondence published in the Lancet, not by the Lancet itself. 114.76.124.219 (talk) 09:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Done. NadVolum (talk) 12:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi NadVolum. Appreciate the edit of "study" to "correspondence" - I think the more significant change I would advocate for is the change of tense. In both sections I've highlighted in my edit request, the article refers to the Lancet as having estimated that 186,000 deaths had already occurred by June/July 2024. The article itself though puts forth the estimate of 186,000 for the total direct and indirect deaths when accounting for both deaths of the conflict up to June 2024 and occurring in the future as a result of conflict up to June. I have included the relevant section of the article itself with bolding for emphasis: 49.186.232.252 (talk) 02:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

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.

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 death 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. 49.186.232.252 (talk) 02:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Did a hopefully exact copy this time. NadVolum (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Added clarification about the coming months and years. NadVolum (talk) 23:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you NadVolum - I think the page better reflects the published correspondence now. 49.186.43.37 (talk) 05:44, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

New WP:RS Estimate: At Least 74% of Identified Gazan Fatalities Civilians

Hey,

Today the Action on Armed Violence NGO published a report, with me as author (and subject-matter expert, economist and armed-conflict scholar Mike Spagat, reviewing and approving my analysis), estimating that the civilians to combatants ratio for identified fatalities in Gaza is somewhere in between 2.8:1 and 9.6:1, with the former being a bare-minimum estimate. Meaning that 74% of the total at least are civilians. The punchline is that Israel is not telling the truth in its estimates of an about 1:1 ratio.

Since AOAV is a reliable source often cited in this article, I believe the report belongs in the article per your own policies. However, I won't edit it in myself because as the author of the piece I have an obvious conflict of interest. I'm just flagging it for you guys and you can make your own decision. HistorySpeaksWiki (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I've put the lower level estimate into the table. Perhaps somebody else can write up something suitable into the article as there's a number of other points. NadVolum (talk) 23:25, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

"Casualties"

The entire article really needs to reworked to account for the word "casualty" so often being used (in the West at least) to mean "fatality" when the actual definition of casualty includes both deaths and injuries (as well as missing, captured, and desertions in a military context). For example, the oft-cited "UN 9:1 civilian to combatant ratio" includes injuries as well as deaths in the actual report, but the sentences directly preceding this citation in the wiki article is talking exclusively about those *killed* by direct military violence. JudithButlerianJihad (talk) 01:02, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 November 2024

I suggest replacing the following paragraph :

According to a letter sent to President Joseph R. Biden, Vice President Kamala D. Harris, and others on October 2, 2024 by 99 American healthcare workers who have served in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, and cited in a study from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, based on starvation standards by the United States-funded Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, according to the most conservative estimate that they could calculate based on the available data, at least 62,413 people in Gaza have thus far died from starvation, most of them young children, as well as at least 5,000 estimated deaths from lack of access to care for chronic diseases.[31][32][33]

by the following :

According to a letter sent to President Joseph R. Biden, Vice President Kamala D. Harris, and others on October 2, 2024 by 99 American healthcare workers who have served in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, based on starvation standards by the United States-funded Integrated Food Security Phase Classification and cited in a study from the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the most conservative estimate that they could calculate based on the available data was at least 62,413 deaths in Gaza from starvation (most of them young children) and at least 5,000 deaths from lack of access to care for chronic diseases.[31][32][33]

to avoid any repetition and to shorten the overall length of this complex and very long sentence. Even as an advanced English speaker (although non native) I had a hard time making it to the end of the paragraph unconfused. 46.218.138.102 (talk) 12:46, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now: please make your request at Template talk:Israel–Hamas war casualties. Bowler the Carmine | talk 18:48, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The change does affect the template but it appears here and I think the change is reasonable so I'll do it to the template. By the way Euro Med had earlier estimated 51,000 indirect deaths from their links inside Gaza, they attributed most to lack of healthcare and rampant dsease instead of famine but said that the lack of food was a major factor in people not recovering from injury or disease. This report just stuck in a ? for deaths from lack of healthcare which makes rather a mess of it. I rather get the feeling they wanted to attribute the deaths more to famine as that is covered by international agreements which Biden might take notice of. Though he has taken precious little notice of what has happened to the people in Gaza so far so I wouldn't bet on it. NadVolum (talk) 19:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

This makes no sense and is misleading.

I'm not sure if the numbers for the occupied West Bank are accurate, but by "other parts of Israel" is it referring to occupied Gaza, and if so, why not have the total killed there?

"The 7 October attacks on Israel killed 1,195 people, including 815 civilians. A further 479 Palestinians, including 116 children, and 9 Israelis have been killed in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem). Casualties have also occurred in other parts of Israel, as well as in southern Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran." Deshaar (talk) 16:01, 8 November 2024 (UTC)