An analysis conducted by the Associated Press based on data provided by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has revealed that fewer women and children have been killed as the war progressed.
This trend is significant because it contradicts the ministry’s public claims and coincides with tactical changes made by the IDF, AP reported.
Based on figures provided by the Hamas-run ministry, the rate of women and children being killed in the war, between October and April, dropped by over 20%. AP stressed that the United Nations failed to comment on this change and the Hamas-run ministry had also remained silent.
In October, shortly after Hamas began the war with massacres in southern Israel, the ministry had claimed that 64% of the 6745 alleged deaths were women and people aged below 17 years. In April, women and children comprised 38% of the reported death count, AP reported.
“Historically, airstrikes [kill] a higher ratio of women and children compared to ground operations,” said Larry Lewis, an expert on the civilian impacts of war at CNA, a nonprofit research group in Washington. He also confirmed the findings of the AP analysis “make sense.”
Issues with the Hamas-provided data
Hamas considers all women and individuals aged below 17 as civilians, regardless of their affiliation or activities.
Netanyahu, speaking on the "Call Me Back" podcast in May, said that Israel had "been able to keep the ratio of civilians to combatants killed... (to) a ratio of about one to one."
While the ministry has provided a new death toll daily, AP reported that the deaths were often reported without supporting data.
In February, Hamas health officials claimed 75% of those killed in the conflict were women and children – a level that was never confirmed in the detailed reports. In March, the ministry’s daily reports claimed that 72% of the dead were women and children, despite underlying data detailing the percentage was well below that.
Dr. Moatasem Salah, director of Hamas’s health ministry’s emergency center, took issue with assertions that Hamas was deliberately manipulating the data. He insisted that 70% of those killed have been women and children and said the overall death toll is much higher than what has been reported as many bodies were undiscovered.
“This shows disrespect to the humanity for any person who exists here,” he said. “We are not numbers … These are all human souls.”
Despite Salah’s assertions, and the World Health's Organization defense of the figures only weeks ago, the UN halved the number of women and children believed to have been killed in Gaza in May.