Hamas removes over 1,000 child deaths from casualty report, analysis reveals

An analysis by Salo Aizenberg, a board member of Honest Reporting and analyst for NGO Monitor, reveals that Hamas has quietly removed thousands of "verified deaths" from its casualty list, including over 1,000 child fatalities. According to Aizenberg’s findings, Hamas has adjusted its casualty reports from the war, eliminating about 3,400 previously listed deaths from its August and September 2024 records, many of which were originally attributed to children.

In his report, Aizenberg pointed out that the deletions are part of a larger pattern of deception and manipulation of casualty numbers by the Hamas controlled Gaza Health Ministry. The removed fatalities were included in Hamas's earlier casualty reports but were absent from an updated list published in March 2025. The analyst raised questions about the authenticity of these figures, speculating whether some deaths may have been fabricated, misreported, or intentionally manipulated.

Aizenberg suggested that Hamas has been consistently inflating civilian and child casualty numbers, citing examples from previous conflicts. For instance, in one earlier report, 471 alleged deaths at al-Ahli Hospital were falsely included in casualty tallies. Additionally, Hamas had claimed that 70% of fatalities were women and children, a claim that was later adjusted after further scrutiny, suggesting intentional manipulation of casualty data to influence international perception.

Despite the removal of thousands of supposed deaths from the casualty list, Aizenberg warned that the updated numbers released in March 2025 should not be considered reliable. He explained that while the removal of fake fatalities may seem like an attempt at transparency, Hamas’s casualty reporting remains untrustworthy, with some real deaths potentially being used to substantiate false claims. Aizenberg highlighted that approximately 8,000 deaths listed in the updated report are natural deaths, raising doubts about the accuracy of the remaining figures.

Hamas’s casualty figures, particularly the claims of a disproportionate number of women and children among the fatalities, have often been cited by international media and human rights organizations without scrutiny. These claims have been repeatedly debunked, yet continue to shape global narratives around the conflict. In contrast, Israel has asserted that around 20,000 enemy combatants have been killed in Gaza, a claim that suggests a much lower civilian to combatant casualty ratio than typically seen in urban warfare. The United Nations reports that in most modern conflicts, civilians account for the majority of casualties, but Israel's data presents a rare exception, with a significantly lower proportion of civilian fatalities.