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A report revealed 83 percent of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza are civilians, with only 17 percent identified as combatants.
Israeli soldiers walk out from a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis at the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. (IMAGE: REUTERS)
Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate that five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza are civilians, as per a joint investigation by the Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language site Local Call.
As of May- 19 months into the war- Israeli intelligence officials had listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as dead or “probably dead.” At the same time, Gaza’s health authorities reported about 53,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks (52,928 as of 14 May 2025). On those figures, combatants accounted for 17% of the dead, implying 83% civilians, as per the investigation.
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Therese Pettersson of the Uppsala Conflict Data Program noted that similarly extreme civilian shares have been recorded only in exceptional episodes such as Srebrenica, the Rwandan genocide and the 2022 siege of Mariupol, adding, “That proportion of civilians among those killed would be unusually high, particularly as it has been going on for such a long time.”
The Israel Defense Forces did not dispute the existence of the database or its tally of Hamas/PIJ deaths, as per the report as a spokesperson said the “figures presented in the article are incorrect” and “do not reflect the data available in the IDF’s systems.”
What Israeli Military Database Shows On Gaza War
The database names 47,653 Palestinians considered active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ. Israeli politicians and commanders have at times claimed up to 20,000 militants killed or touted a 1:1 civilian-to-combatant ratio. Retired general Itzhak Brik, who advised Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the outset of the war and is now a prominent critic, said serving troops know official militant tolls are inflated. He said, “There is absolutely no connection between the numbers that are announced and what is actually happening. It is just one big bluff.” Despite the devastation, the classified database still lists nearly 40,000 people the army considers militants alive.
Independent Tallies And On-The-Ground Reports
Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada said internal estimates from Hamas and PIJ members pointed to about 6,500 killed across the groups’ military and political wings by December 2024, far below Israeli public claims.
Mary Kaldor, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics and director of the Conflict Research Programme, said the campaign in Gaza resembles a series of targeted assassinations in densely populated areas “carried out with no concern for civilians,” rather than conventional battles envisaged by international humanitarian law.
Researchers warned the civilian share may have grown further since May as Israeli forces reportedly killed hundreds of people seeking food at distribution points.
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Israel
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