83% Of Those Killed In Gaza Are Civilians, Per Israel's Own Data

Classified intelligence from May reveals Israel believed it had killed some 8,900 militants in its attacks on Gaza, indicating a proportion of civilian slaughter with few parallels in modern warfare, a joint investigation finds.

By Yuval Abraham, +972 Magazine

Data from an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza were civilians, an investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal.

Figures obtained from the classified database — which records the deaths of militants from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) — contradict by a huge margin the public statements of Israeli army and government officials throughout the war, which have generally claimed a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio of civilian to militant casualties. Instead, the classified data backs up the findings of several studies suggesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed civilians at a rate with few parallels in modern warfare.

The Israeli army confirmed the existence of the database, which is managed by the Military Intelligence Directorate (known by the Hebrew acronym “Aman”). Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said the army views it as the only authoritative tally of militant casualty figures. In the words of one of them: “There’s no other place to check.”

The database includes a list of 47,653 names of Palestinians in Gaza whom Aman considers to be active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ; according to the sources, the list is based on the groups’ own internal documents acquired by the army (which +972, Local Call, and the Guardian were unable to verify). The database designates 34,973 of the names as operatives of Hamas and 12,702 as operatives of Islamic Jihad (a small number are listed as active with both groups, but these are counted only once in the overall total).

According to the data, which was obtained in May of this year, the Israeli army believed it had killed around 8,900 operatives since October 7 — the deaths of 7,330 of whom were considered certain and 1,570 recorded as “probably dead.” The vast majority of them were junior, with the army suspecting it had killed 100-300 senior Hamas operatives out of a total of 750 named in the database.

A source familiar with the database explained that a specific piece of intelligence is attached to the name of every operative on the list whom the army is sure it killed, justifying that designation. +972, Local Call, and the Guardian obtained the numerical data from the database without the names or additional intelligence reports.