The evidence that the Gaza casualty numbers provided by the Hamas-run Health Ministry (now over 32,000) are wildly inflated continues to mount. Today in the Telegraph, Mark Zlochin looks at what the proportions of male and female UNRWA workers tell us.
The UNRWA data provided to the Telegraph covers the period between October 7th and January 4th and documents the deaths of 150 UNRWA workers in Gaza. As previously reported, it shows that half of those deaths occurred in the three weeks immediately following the October 7th massacre and before the Israeli land incursion into Gaza started.
But perhaps the most notable feature of UNRWA casualties dataset is that men account for 62% of the deaths, despite representing only 41% of the UNRWA staff in Gaza.
In other words, male UNRWA workers appear much more likely to be killed than female workers. For women, one in every 132 workers have been killed, while for men the chances of being killed are more than twice as high – one in every 57.
This pattern is not replicated in the death data reported by the Gazan hospitals. According to that data, men in Gaza do face a higher risk of death than women, but by nothing like the extent found in URWA’s data.
What could explain this difference? Why are male UNRWA workers apparently being killed at a significantly faster rate than Gazan men in general? There are several possibilities …
However, if the analysis is limited to female workers, the discrepancy between the two datasets falls away. There is a nearly perfect match between the number of female UNRWA casualties and the total death count based on hospital records alone.
This is particularly interesting in light of the growing gap between the death toll documented by hospital records and the total claimed number of deaths.
We have also compared the geographical distribution of UNRWA female staff deaths with the detailed information collected by the Palestinian NGO ‘Shireen Observatory’ and found a very close match between the two.
This appears to further strengthen the case for using the UNRWA female staff deaths numbers, and the closely matching numbers from hospital records, as a proxy for the actual mortality numbers in Gaza. If we did this, it would suggest that around 18,000 (not 32,414) had died in Gaza since October 7th.
This new analysis complements the earlier one by Prof. Abraham Wyner and comes to broadly the same conclusion: the death numbers are significantly inflated and shouldn’t be trusted.
Separate analysis by the Washington Institute agrees that the figures are inaccurate and the proportion of women and children is overstated. It concludes: “The demographic composition of these fatalities is certainly far different than what the [Ministry of Health] claims”. However, its researchers argue that the overall death toll is more likely to be understated due to male combatants being routinely omitted.
It’s clear that politicians should stop relying on these very ropey Hamas figures to formulate and defend their responses to the conflict.
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