It’s time to cut thru the crap on Gaza death tolls. Here’s a graph of official deaths:
You’ll notice that over time the curve is flattening. Now you might be stupid enough to dunk your eyes in Dettol for fun, and thus think “oh, I’m sure the rate of killing has decreased significantly”, but given that Israel is systematically funneling Palestinians into “humanitarian zones” which it then bombs the hell out of once there’s a good density, that seems unlikely.
There is also the fact that the Palestinian authorities which count deaths are not as effective as they were at the beginning of the genocide.
Psychologically one suspects Hamas does not want to admit how high the death toll is either.
So let’s eyeball that chart and extend the original line before the flattening. We’ll be conservative, and say it should be around sixty thousand.
Now, the Lancet came out with a study on what the actual death toll might be. Let’s look at their methodology.
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.
So, the normal number of indirect deaths is three to fifteen times and the Lancet chose four. But Israel has restricted food and medical aid and systematically destroyed hospitals. Multiple countries cut off funding to the primary aide agency, UNWRA, and most Gazans can’t flee: there’s no way out of Gaza.
That is to say that the indirect death multiplier is almost certainly higher than average in Gaza. So let’s assume just slightly higher than average: an eight times multiplier.
Now do the math 8*60,000=480,000.
A reasonable estimate of the death toll in Gaza is thus 480,000 people. Almost half a million and about seventeen percent of the pre-war population.
Whatever the death toll is it will be closer to half a million than to forty thousand.
mago
Almost every account one reads from whatever source sticks with the laughable figure of 36,360 deaths—a statistic from months ago.
Your assessment is far more realistic. Thanks for elucidating.
This is a sickening, barbaric and incomprehensible tragedy that is being normalized. Ho hum. Another day another slaughter. Look, what’s that over there?
david lamy
Israel is mass murdering Semites.
Protest this vile action in Washington, D.C. and our Vice President, Kamala Harris will deem that as antisemitic and for bonus points with our capitalist overlords, also label it as unpatriotic.
What I have noted over the course of my life is how many words have been stripped of their meaning. Antisemitic, terrorist, authoritarian, freedom … the list is long, too long.
Carborundum
There’s a couple of issues with using 60,000 as a baseline:
1) Most significantly, the 58,260 projection cited by the Lancet authors covers the period of 7 Feb to 6 Aug 2024 only (i.e., it does not include reported deaths prior to 7 Feb).
2) The Lancet-cited projection includes a modest number of deaths that would be considered to be indirect conflict deaths, per the classification used in establishing the multiplier applied by the Lancet authors. The more correct projection to use as a basing figure would be 53,450.
Prorating the basing figure to adjust for the slightly shortened projection period gives us a current basing of 50,220 to which we add 27,708 (which is being reported as the then current figure being reported by the ministry in Gaza) for a total basing estimate of 77,928.
Depending on the multiplier used for indirect deaths, this then produces estimates of excess conflict mortality (direct and indirect) to date of 311,712 [4x] and 623,424 [8x]. Personally, I would lean towards the 4x multiplier as I assume that the authors of the study cited chose that as the specific figure because they know something about the distribution underlying the range that I don’t.
Dan
This reminds me of the war in Yemen, and how the “official” death toll was stuck at 10,000 for years, even as famine and cholera ravaged the civilian population, not to mention all the Saudi and UAE bombing.
Oakchair
Israel has forgot the last lesson from the worlds most famous Jewish person. “The tyrant dies and his rule ends; the martyr dies and his rule begins.”
Make no mistake Israel as a nation is flailing on its death bed. It’s economy is sinking, the Middle East no longer fears them, the global south is against them, the west can’t save them, and as the genocide’s popularity declines won’t even want to, and they are a few escalations away from Hezbollah et al from demolishing any hint their military is anything but a bunch of concentration camp guards.
Soredemos
But remember to vote Team Blue because reasons.
In my observations of and (brief; since you can’t change anything there’s zero point ruining relationships at the personal level) engaging in political conversations with Liberal Democrats, this whole thing is a complete non-issue. No one has any idea the real number is much higher, because few have any idea it’s at least 40,000.
They’re all gushing over Harris (in and of itself extremely embarrassing, this uniquely repulsive but substanitively bland neoliberal non-entity. Trump is going to steamroll her) and continue to be unable to find Palestine on a map. Literally, most people are unaware a genocide is going on.
Feral Finster
It is abundantly obvious that Israel is engaged in an intentional ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and,, barring that, outright genocide.
It is doing so with the conscious and willing military and non-military assistance of the Biden Administration, which is attacking the one country that dares stand up for Gaza.
Go on, tell us some more about how Team D is entitled to our vote. You knowingly vote for genocide.
Own it.
Bob
JFC. In my guts I’ve thought something like this. Not so good to hear from someone else.
Tc
Just had a typical convo with my trumpista parent snidely observing that first thing biden will do now is pardon his son. I reminded her of trumps pardons and his own 34 count conviction, after which she quickly changed the subject. Reality made almost no impact on her impervious worldview. Since the advent of fox news in the 90s I had gotten used to the utter lack of morality and the vicious stupidity of the right. But hooboy have I had a rude awakening in the last 10 months about how shallow the left is in its attempts to justify throwing Palestinians under the bus for the sake of limousine liberalism. Almost everybody in this fucking country is some combination of nuts and amoral.
As far as the actual number of dead is, I read a few articles by Israeli papers in response to the Lancet. Basically they make a good case that the numbers are meaningless because there is no way to know how many are dead, mostly cuz Israel is making it impossible to count. Of course the zionists think that exonerates them as innocent until proven guilty.
I dont pretend to know how many have died to date, but I could have told you on October 8 how many will be dead before its over: well over 2,000,000 (thats just Gaza, west bank liquidation is next).
Tc
PSLets not forget thet israel has destroyed all government offices and education institutions. No records of births, marriages or degrees. So when its over they can claim the population of over 2,000,000 was a gross overestimate and is just another “antisemitic trope”
different clue
Here is a comment from a recent Naked Capitalism thread noting who-in-particular within Israel may well have quietly worked to set this all into motion.
“David in Friday Harbor
July 25, 2024 at 2:25 pm
This fact cannot be repeated often enough. The Jew-killers of 10/7/23 were wearing the uniform of the IDF. A Qassam rocket is a glorified pipe bomb incapable of destroying hundreds of cars and kibbutz safe rooms.
The Israeli press tells us that Shin-bet must have had total knowledge of the pending war-crime of a Hamas hostage-taking operation. Revisionist-Zionist Jabotinsky-ite fascist elements in the government and IDF appear to have orchestrated the placing of weak-points in the Gaza perimeter guarded by female IDF units — funneling the hostage-takers toward arab-friendly HaAvoda/Labour kibbutzim and the secular Nova festival. Then they called down a “mass Hannibal” killing of women and secular and leftist Jews.
Objective analysis of the evidence leads to the inevitable conclusion that the entire “justification” for the genocidal ethnic-cleansing of Palestine is a barbaric fascist lie. Our congress-critters show themselves to be shameless war criminals. ”
I offer this comment in case it may be of some use in understanding granular detail levels of current Israel Government ruling-group motivations.
Willy
Netanyahoo just got a four-minute standing ovation from the US congress.
Trump first said: “I kept Israel safe. Nobody else will. Nobody else can. And I know all of the players — they can’t do it. That should never have happened”. And more recently “Frankly, they (Biden administration) got soft” and “Finish the job.” and then for whatever reason added “Likewise, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine” had he been president. Of course and as always, he never mentions any specific policies.
Jared Kushner famously called for Israel to “move the people out, and then clean it up” for the purpose of developing the “very valuable” Gazan real estate.
Elon Musk said about Israels invasion: “There’s no choice. I… uh.. it’s… eh… There’s no choice.”
Biden told reporters that Israel must end it and not occupy Gaza while offering some criticism of Israel’s war cabinet, saying “Israel occasionally was less than cooperative”, yet remains cowed by the status quo.
Most Arab nations do little of anything. Et tu, Egypt?
My so-called “Christian” in-law proclaimed that Palestinians deserve it, since they voted in Hamas (back in 2006 by a small plurality not majority, following Israel’s support for Hamas as a counterweight to the more moderate PLO).
Good luck to the rest of us when the politics gets so fucked up that right and wrong don’t matter anymore to our PTB. They can’t even count death tolls right, anywhere.
Al Felix
thank you Ian for this post. I concur with the methodology you outline, with feelings of horror and a kind of emptiness. I read the comments, all accurate. Soredemos nails it regarding the democrats behavior. a kind of malevolent apathy hangs over all of them. men, women, white black and brown members of their base find something which might personally affect them if Trump is re-elected so they make a decision which is as emotional as choosing to brush their teeth. I despise both parties and their voting base but the self righteousness of the dems pro genocide crew angers me more. I’m rambling cause this is hard to think about, the horror of Gaza.
someofparts
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/the-end-of-israels-economy/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guW0r8R4DQE
Hitler would be so proud of the Zionists.
someofparts
I have a question for the commentariat is anyone is still around. A friend said that there are orthodox jews in the Israeli cabinet. My sense is that the orthodox have been and remain staunchly anti-Zionist. Anyone else have any input on this?
someofparts
https://x.com/PeruginiNic/status/1817004294563872978
From NC this morning – Israel blowing up a water reservoir in Rafah.
There is no language strong enough to describe people this vile.
When Israel goes broke they will move back to the US and have normal lives here. I guess this is where some of those psychopaths Willy describes so well come from.
bruce wilder
Orthodoxy in Judaism encompasses a great variety of what Christians would call, sects. In Israeli politics, securing various privileges for Orthodox leaders and communities as well as sanctions in law for various tenets of Orthodoxy are matters that focus political organizing.
DMC
Despite the press usage of “ultra-orthodox” who they actually mean is the Haredim specifically and the Sephardim generally. The Haredim are the pre-Zionist Jewish residents who have lived in Palestine for as much as a thousand years or more. The Sephardim are the descendants of the Spanish and Middle Eastern Jews. The are more observant than the typical Ashkanazi Jews in that they consider all 10 commandments to be incumbent on Jews. “A Jew is forbidden to steal and a Jew is forbidden to murder. ” The Zionists are either secular or resort to some theological jiggery-pokery to justify their actions. Neither the Haredim nor Sephardim support the secular state of Israel, which has very recently attempted to draft them into the IDF.
Dino
Time to change the subject and expand the war to Lebanon and Iran.
Dan Kelly
This fact cannot be repeated often enough. The Jew-killers of 10/7/23 were wearing the uniform of the IDF. A Qassam rocket is a glorified pipe bomb incapable of destroying hundreds of cars and kibbutz safe rooms.
The Israeli press tells us that Shin-bet must have had total knowledge of the pending war-crime of a Hamas hostage-taking operation. Revisionist-Zionist Jabotinsky-ite fascist elements in the government and IDF appear to have orchestrated the placing of weak-points in the Gaza perimeter guarded by female IDF units — funneling the hostage-takers toward arab-friendly HaAvoda/Labour kibbutzim and the secular Nova festival. Then they called down a “mass Hannibal” killing of women and secular and leftist Jews.
This was reported on in-depth here at Ian’s site right after the event. Yigal Carmon and MEMRI were aware of ‘goings-on’ as early as August and probably earlier. It was reported on in the Israeli press. This means Israeli top brass and anyone meaningful in military/intel/politics was aware. And the public’s mind was greased.
All the links within these two links below are active. They contain a plethora of substantive, well-sourced material on the subject. They also emphasize the oft-forgotten fact that events didn’t begin with Hamas on Oct 7.
“It should be remembered that MEMRI is a propaganda outlet run by an expert with decades of experience in Israeli intelligence. It prepares and presents “estimates” to its own government officials while simultaneously preparing and disseminating propaganda to the targeted masses.
More accurately, MEMRI prepares memos or drafts or even entire articles that are then placed with specific media outlets and pundits, who will then go on to disseminate it to a general audience or specific targeted audiences.
The Brian Whitaker Guardian piece and the Juan Cole investigations make clear that MEMRI primarily creates and attempts to instill enemy images of Arabs and Muslims in the public psyche, while instilling positive images of Israel – in order to further Israel’s political goals….
We can easily glean – just from the opening paragraphs of these Israeli intelligence agency statements that were prepared for their government officials – that Israeli intelligence foresaw a Hamas invasion that would use weapons and tactics that hadn’t been used before, and that Israel would have to call up significantly more reserves than in the past in order to counter this – “an unprecedented, comprehensive response.”
All of this was predicted to happen in October.
How is this a massive intelligence failure on the part of Israel?
The interesting part to me is the statement that “Israel will undertake an unprecedented, comprehensive response, even at the cost of a comprehensive war with Iran, which is activating the Islamist resistance organizations on the ground.”
“…even at the cost of a comprehensive war with Iran” indicates that such a war is always on the front burner for Israel, and given the Oded Yinon – Securing the Realm/PNAC literature this isn’t surprising.
What all of this “intelligence” doesn’t state is all of the violent Israeli military ops that preceded this August report, were going on as it was being written, and which culminated in the atrocities at the Al-Aqsa mosque which Israeli police had already raided back in April and again in August – when the MEMRI report was being written.
Who remembers, or who even knew to begin with, that on July 4 of this year Israel conducted its biggest West Bank military operation in decades?
https://israelpalestinenews.org/thousands-flee-israels-biggest-west-bank-military-operation-in-decades/
Immediately previous to that, this happened:
https://israelpalestinenews.org/stripped-beaten-and-blindfolded-ongoing-violence-and-abuse-of-palestinian-children-detained-by-israeli-military/
and this:
https://israelpalestinenews.org/page/5/
https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-forces-shoot-out-childs-eye-abduct-kill-people-etc/
The day Hamas began its “sneak attack” Israeli forces had once again violated worshippers at al Asq Mosque, just like they had in August when the MEMRI report was being prepared, and just like they did in back April, when they allegedly went in to break up some “agitators.” These are clearly provocations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65184207
Would anyone like to place a bet on whether or not the BBC report was prepared by someone affiliated with Israeli intelligence?”
https://www.ianwelsh.net/thinking-about-a-hezbollah-intervention/#comment-148191
https://www.ianwelsh.net/thinking-about-a-hezbollah-intervention/#comment-148203