FILE- A Palestinian man, holds the bodies of his 5-year-old son, and his 8-year-old daughter, who were killed in an Israeli army strike, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. AFP
The study, conducted by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, found that by the end of 2025, at least 18,592 children and about 12,400 women had been killed in Gaza.
Since the outbreak of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, at least 71,660 Palestinians have been killed and more than 171,000 wounded.
The study noted that despite the ceasefire agreement reached in October 2025, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the truce came into effect.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces have killed 509 Palestinians and injured 1,405 others since the ceasefire began on 10 October 2025.
On Saturday, the Israeli occupation army acknowledged for the first time the accuracy of casualty figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, after more than two years of rejecting them as “Hamas propaganda.”
The acknowledgement showed that more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023, excluding those still missing. Children account for about 30 percent of those killed in Gaza.
During the war, Israel dropped more than 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, according to figures released by local authorities.
The Geneva Academy did not specify the whereabouts of the remaining 182,000 people. However, its findings align with a report released last week by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), which said Gaza’s population fell by 10.6 percent over the two-year war period, declining from about 2.23 million before the war to 2.13 million by the end of 2025.
The PCBS attributed this “unprecedented demographic haemorrhage” to the high death toll, thousands of missing persons, forced displacement out of the strip, and a sharp decline in birth rates.
The bureau warned of a “fundamental shift” in the population pyramid, specifically noting a six percent decline in the youth population aged 18 to 29 due to systematic targeting and displacement.
Despite the sharp decline in Gaza, the total Palestinian population worldwide grew to an estimated 15.49 million by the end of 2025, with 5.56 million residing within the State of Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank).
The Israeli war on Gaza was described as one of the deadliest among 23 armed conflicts examined in the survey conducted by the Geneva Academy.
The authoritative War Watch survey, which assessed 23 armed conflicts worldwide between July 2024 and the end of 2025, concluded that international law designed to limit the effects of war is at a breaking point. It found that more than 100,000 civilians were killed in each of the two years, while torture and rape were committed with near impunity.
Beyond Gaza, the report documented rising civilian casualties in Ukraine and described an “epidemic” of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The laws of armed conflict, developed extensively after the Second World War, including through the 1949 Geneva Conventions, were intended primarily to protect civilians in both civil wars and conflicts between states.
However, the report found that serious violations of international humanitarian law were carried out “on a huge scale and with rampant impunity,” while efforts to pursue war crimes prosecutions have remained limited.
The survey stood in contrast to claims by US President Donald Trump that he ended eight wars during his year in office, The Guardian said.
The War Watch report called for the systematic prosecution of war crimes and urged greater political and financial support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, as well as national war crimes courts.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of committing war crimes. Separately, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is examining a case brought by South Africa in 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
In addition, United Nations investigative bodies, along with several humanitarian organizations and international human rights and academic institutions, have stated in their reports that Israel has committed acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
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