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Recent reports have revealed a significant discrepancy in Hamas’s casualty figures from the Gaza conflict, challenging earlier widely-circulated statistics about civilian deaths. Initially, major news outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, and Reuters, reported UN claims that approximately 70 percent of Gaza casualties were women and children.

These reports relied on data from the UN Human Rights Office, which stated it had verified 8,119 deaths through three separate sources. This figure stood in stark contrast to the Palestinian health authorities’ claim of over 43,000 casualties, which later escalated to 50,000.

However, a recent investigation by the UK Telegraph has uncovered that Hamas has quietly removed thousands of names from its casualty list during a March update. This revision included the removal of 3,400 previously “identified” deaths, with 1,080 of these being children, as noted by Salo Aizenberg of Honest Reporting.

The revised figures paint a dramatically different picture of the conflict’s casualties. According to the Jerusalem Post’s analysis, roughly 72 percent of fatalities between ages 13-55 are now shown to be men, a demographic consistent with combat participants.

Andrew Fox, author of a December report for the Henry Jackson Society, provided insight into these statistical manipulations. His report had previously highlighted how “The Ministry of Health, operating under Hamas, has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.”

Fox’s analysis of the March numbers revealed significant flaws in Hamas’s reporting system. While acknowledging that computer system failures in November 2023 may have contributed to reporting challenges, he emphasized that the casualty lists are fundamentally unreliable. The reporting system, he explained, allows anyone with access to a Google form to input names and ID numbers of supposed casualties.

Particularly concerning is Fox’s revelation about the UN’s role in validating these numbers. “The U.N. also just takes Hamas’s figures and publishes them with a note stating the figures are unconfirmed,” he stated. This admission raises serious questions about the verification process of casualty figures that have been widely cited in international media.

Fox suggests that Hamas’s recent removal of names likely represents an attempt to eliminate entries they cannot substantiate. Regarding the high proportion of military-aged male casualties, he noted, “We know that Hamas uses child soldiers, and these statistics show clearly that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men.”

This revelation has effectively transformed the narrative from one where 70 percent of casualties were supposedly women and children – a figure the UN claimed to have triple-verified – to a reality where 72 percent of casualties are military-aged males, with Hamas apparently revising its own figures due to their lack of credibility.