The occupation army noted that "this number does not include missing persons who are likely buried under the rubble."
Sources in the Israeli army told Haaretz that military officials have now confirmed the casualty figures and that "data on those who lost their lives is currently being analyzed to determine the number of combatants and civilians among them."
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, 71,667 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, including 492 who have been killed since the ceasefire agreement was signed last October.
The Health Ministry also reported that 171,343 Palestinians have been wounded, representing approximately 8.1 percent of the population.
According to the left-wing Hebrew newspaper, this number includes those killed directly by Israeli fire and does not include those who died from other causes such as starvation and disease.
These figures are considered reliable by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations. The data published by the Ministry of Health regarding the dead and wounded in the Gaza Strip has been scrutinized since the beginning of the war on Gaza by numerous international organizations, governments, media outlets, and researchers, and there is a broad consensus on its reliability.
The Israeli government spent years rejecting the death toll announced by the Ministry of Health in Gaza. Although many international experts accepted the Ministry of Health's data as reliable, even conservative compared to the actual number of deaths, Israel refused to accept the Ministry of Health's statistics in Gaza.
The Israeli occupation has never officially acknowledged this figure; in fact, the Israeli Foreign Ministry described it as "misleading and unreliable." However, Israel did not refute the data with contradictory information. Furthermore, several studies have indicated that the number of martyrs in Gaza is likely higher than what the Ministry of Health in the Strip reports.
According to the British newspaper The Independent, a study by Professor Michael Spaggatt of University College London indicated that more than 75,000 Palestinians had been killed during the war up to January 2025. The Gaza Ministry of Health estimated the number at slightly over 45,600, suggesting it was 40 percent lower than the actual figure.
Another study, published in the medical journal The Lancet in January 2025, indicated that the number of fatalities was approximately 40 percent higher than the recorded figures.
At that time, a growing number of international experts concluded that the Gaza Ministry of Health's data was reliable, and perhaps even overly conservative.
This comes as Israel and Hamas prepare to move to the second phase of a ceasefire, following the discovery of the remains of the last Israeli captive in Gaza last Monday.
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