https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

"In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza."

Only these deaths are counted in the GHM numbers:

• folks that died in a hospital or who were brought to a hospital after death,

• folks who had surviving family who contacted a hospital to report the death (with limited phone service —80% of cell towers were destroyed as of Mar 2024)

• folks whose deaths were recorded by a journalist.

With most of Gaza's hospitals destroyed, only three hospitals still reporting morgue data, and journalists being targeted, the official figures are going to be underestimates.

(Also, the famine: with 93% of Gaza at "acute food insecurity at Phase 3 or higher" and 378,000 at Phase 5 "Catastrophe/Famine" food insecurity and 300,000 living on an average of 245 calories a day, famine both causes deaths and reduces record-keeping.)

This scholarly Lancet article Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential boils down to a scholarly 'I dunno man, multiply by four?', which puts the estimated true figure well above 100,000. This other report Crisis in Gaza: Scenario-based Health Impact Projections estimates 66,720 deaths (95% CI 48,210 to 193,180) for just 7 Feb to 6 Aug 2024, which implies a figure well over 100,000 for the conflict as a whole.

I’d be interested in critique and comment on my reasoning here.

I anchor my expectations in this report attempting to project Palestine death rates over from 7th February to 6th August: https://gaza-projections.org.

The question is which scenario is Gaza in (cease fire, status quo or escalation) and within that, potential possible outcomes. It seems highly likely, given the state of domestic Israeli politics, that we are in an escalation scenario with a Rafah invasion imminent (although let’s see). And within the each scenario we are dealing with very fat-tailed distributions of mortality due to the risk of epidemics. For example, while the mean mortality estimate for the escalation scenario without epidemics is ~75, 000, the upper 95% bound with pandemics is over 200 000.

Accordingly, forecasting this question seems to involve balancing a more likely linear progression against all smaller chance of an exponential process taking hold (roughly, epidemics, or, much less likely, widening or conflict into Lebanon or Iran). The opposite could also take place — the government falls and a hostage deal ends the conflict, although  the dominant alternative is Ganz who is quite hawkish.

Without any sophisticated method, and taking into account the linked projection was only to August (and, of course, the conflict could go longer), it seems around ~20-30% seems right for this question?

Do Lebanese / Hezbollah deaths count?

@Haws can you clarify this? ditto for Iranian casualties.

@EdBarth To clarify how the resolution will be determined:

Any recorded casualties to this Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war - Wikipedia

The death toll I would assume includes Iran but their 7 casualties do not seem to be noted in this article.

Currently the chart (which is updated every 5 days) is showing roughly 34,000 deaths as of May 4:

Hopefully that clears up the resolution criteria - if need be I will independently research each country that may have deaths associated (humanitarian to military, if it can be linked to this conflict it will be added to the death toll for this question).

So that will include Lebanese fighters at the boarder, Yemeni casualties, Iranian, or any other countries that join the conflict.

I know that makes this question pretty nebulous, but it is in line with the spirit of the question.

Let me know if we need more clarity.

@Haws Perfect! Thanks!

Will you be counting deaths from contagious disease due to impaired sanitation and lack of medical supplies?

@PrivatePrivate any deaths that can be directly linked to this conflict will count. Including what you mentioned.

• Deaths in hospitals due to lack of resources

• famine

• Combat

• Etc.

This would be 5% of the population of Gaza.

@toms the death toll would include anyone involved in the conflict. Israel, Gaza, Westbank, reporters, other nations or groups which enter.

@Haws Understood, but I strongly expect that a significant majority of the deaths in the conflict from now on will be Gazans.