New Report Dismantles Hamas Claims About Gaza Civilian Casualties

Edited by: Fern Sidman

A new and highly detailed analysis has debunked Hamas’s widely circulated claim that 70 percent of those killed in the Gaza conflict have been women and children, according to a major report covered extensively by The Telegraph of the UK.

The study, published by the Henry Jackson Society, a leading British think tank, systematically challenges accusations that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have engaged in indiscriminate killing of civilians. Drawing upon Gaza’s own hospital records and mortality lists, the report found that the numbers presented by the Hamas-run Gaza health authorities are “demonstrably false,” as reported by The Telegraph.

As The Telegraph report noted, the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas appointees, has consistently alleged that 70 percent of the 51,000 Palestinian deaths recorded since October 7, 2023 are women and children. These claims have been widely circulated internationally to paint the IDF’s operations as reckless or deliberately targeting civilians.

However, the new study by Professors Lewi Stone and Gregory Rose from the Henry Jackson Society presents compelling evidence that contradicts these assertions. According to their findings, only 51 percent of casualties in the overall period have been women and children, a number significantly lower than Hamas’s claims.

Even more notably, The Telegraph reported that the civilian casualty rate has declined even further over the past year, indicating a growing precision and restraint by Israeli forces as the conflict has continued.

The research dives into detailed examples, notably focusing on the fierce battles in Khan Younis during the first quarter of last year. Khan Younis, where women and children comprised approximately 75 percent of the population, saw a much lower casualty rate among those groups: only 34 percent of those killed were women and children, according to the new data.

The Telegraph report emphasized that this finding directly undermines claims of indiscriminate IDF targeting. The IDF had issued numerous public warnings for civilians to evacuate Khan Younis before military operations began, further demonstrating efforts to minimize harm to non-combatants.

Professors Stone and Rose also meticulously analyzed death statistics from Gaza hospitals, establishing that out of 11,224 people killed since October 2023: 76.3 percent (8,565 individuals) were male, 23.7 percent (2,659 individuals) were female and critically, 58 percent of the deceased were men of fighting age.

These statistics, as reported by The Telegraph, paint a very different picture than the one promoted by Hamas and its international sympathizers.

The report goes further, accusing the Gaza Ministry of Health of systematic manipulation of its own data. According to the findings outlined by The Telegraph, Hamas-controlled media offices have curated and spun hospital data to inflate the reported percentage of women and children casualties for international consumption.

“The Hamas government media office curated the data to spin media-ready versions that inflated women and children’s deaths to levels that gave the deceptive impression of indiscriminate Israeli attacks,” the report states, as cited by The Telegraph.

Stone and Rose argue that infographics and public statements issued by the Ministry of Health frequently contradicted the ministry’s own internal hospital records, with repeated public claims of a 70 percent casualty rate for women and children that simply did not match the detailed source material.

As The Telegraph report indicated, the evidence strongly suggests that Hamas deliberately engineered a false narrative to rally international sympathy and vilify Israel in the media.

The publication of the Henry Jackson Society report comes on the heels of an admission by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regarding a tragic incident on March 23, 2025, where 15 emergency workers—14 members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) and a UN employee—were killed when their convoy came under Israeli fire.

As reported by The Telegraph, an internal IDF inquiry concluded that a series of “professional failures,” “operational errors,” and “breaches of orders” contributed to the tragedy. This level of transparency stands in stark contrast to Hamas’s approach to casualty reporting and highlights the challenges of conducting military operations in a densely populated war zone.

While Israel’s military campaign—launched in response to the October 7 Hamas massacre—has indeed resulted in the deaths and suffering of many civilians, The Telegraph report noted that the Henry Jackson Society’s new findings urge caution against accepting Hamas’s casualty figures at face value.

In their report, Professors Stone and Rose assert that Hamas has not only fought a physical war against Israel but has simultaneously waged an aggressive information war targeting Western media and public opinion. As cited by The Telegraph, they describe a “concerted effort by Hamas to inflate civilian death numbers, particularly among women and children,” while systematically excluding combatant casualties, especially those among Hamas operatives.

“These manipulations have been cynically designed to distort the civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio and weaponize public opinion against Israel,” the report states, as quoted by The Telegraph.

Indeed, while the IDF estimated earlier this year that it had killed approximately 20,000 Hamas and other terrorist fighters, The Telegraph report pointed out that not a single Gazan death has been officially recorded as a combatant by the Gaza Ministry of Health—an institution heavily controlled by Hamas-appointed officials.

The report explained that adult male deaths, often strongly indicative of combatant status, have been routinely excluded or under-reported in casualty statistics published by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, leading to a grossly skewed portrayal of the conflict.

As emphasized in The Telegraph’s coverage, the authors of the report—both esteemed academics—warn that the dissemination of falsified casualty data carries profound real-world consequences.

Professor Gregory Rose, an honorary professor of law at the University of Wollongong in Australia, stated: “Hamas has waged not just a physical war but an information war, and far too many in the West have fallen for it.”

He called on media outlets, policymakers, and international institutions to treat any data sourced from terrorist organizations with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny.

Similarly, Professor Lewi Stone, a professor of mathematical epidemiology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, stressed the broader dangers: “Manipulated statistics have real-world consequences. When international bodies, human rights organizations, and even Western governments make policy on the basis of falsified data, they are, wittingly or not, advancing the aims of a terrorist organization.”

Their comments, reported in detail by The Telegraph, underline the urgent need for a more critical evaluation of casualty statistics coming out of conflict zones controlled by non-state actors like Hamas.

Responding to the allegations, Gaza Health Ministry official Zaher al-Wahidi insisted that the ministry does not falsify data. As reported by The Telegraph, al-Wahidi stated: “The health ministry works towards having accurate data with high credibility. In every list that gets shared, there is a greater verification and revision of the list. We cannot say that the health ministry removes names. It’s not a removal process, rather, it is a revision and verification process.”

However, the Henry Jackson Society report found persistent inconsistencies between public claims made by the ministry and its own internal hospital records, raising significant doubts about the credibility of such assurances.

The findings reported by The Telegraph deliver a stark message: In the fog of war, truth is often the first casualty—and deliberate distortion by terrorist organizations can have serious political and humanitarian consequences if left unchallenged.

While Israel has demonstrated a willingness to acknowledge its mistakes and hold itself accountable, the report asserts that Hamas has systematically manipulated the narrative to serve its strategic interests, often with willing complicity from international media outlets that fail to question the sources of their information.

In this increasingly complex and emotionally charged conflict, the report calls on journalists, policymakers, and human rights organizations to exercise far greater critical judgment—and reminds the world that transparency, not propaganda, must be the foundation of any honest reckoning with the costs of war.