DayofPal—A new study by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) has concluded that Israel’s war on Gaza has likely caused more than 100,000 Palestinian deaths, significantly higher than the figures reported by Gaza’s health ministry.
Released on Tuesday, the report estimates that 78,318 people were directly killed between 7 October 2023 and the end of 2024. A follow-up analysis indicates that by 6 October 2025, the death toll had likely surpassed 100,000.
The Palestinian health ministry currently reports at least 69,733 people killed.
MPIDR, one of Europe’s foremost demographic research institutions, based its findings on data from the Gaza health ministry, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, B’Tselem, and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to the study, life expectancy in Gaza collapsed by 44% in 2023 and 47% in 2024, amounting to losses of 34.4 and 36.4 years, respectively, compared with a no-war scenario.
Over two years, Israeli bombardment devastated the Gaza enclave. Numerous UN officials, rights experts, genocide scholars, and heads of state have described Israel’s actions as a genocide.
A recent UN Conference on Trade and Development report described Gaza as a “human-made abyss”.
While MPIDR refrained from assessing whether the assault met the legal definition of genocide, it noted that the age and gender patterns of violent deaths mirror those observed in genocides studied by the UN Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.
“As genocide is a very specific legal term, certain additional criteria must be met for it to be applicable. This was not the focus of this study,” the authors wrote.
Ana C. Gomez-Ugarte, one of the report’s authors, emphasized that the estimates reflect only direct war-related deaths.
“Our analysis focuses exclusively on direct, conflict-related deaths. The indirect effects of war, which are often greater and more long-lasting, are not quantified… our estimates likely represent only a lower bound of the actual mortality burden,” she said.
Although a US-brokered ceasefire began on 11 October, Israeli forces have continued to strike Gaza. According to local authorities, at least 339 Palestinians have been killed in nearly 500 ceasefire violations.
Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=69748
