The Human Toll: Indirect Deaths from War in Gaza and the West Bank, October 7, 2023 Forward
This report gathers previously published data to provide an overview of the human costs that have resulted, and will continue to result, from the Hamas attack and Israeli military operations in one year of war since October 7, 2023. It includes United Nations estimates of Israeli and Palestinian direct deaths in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Most expansively, this report also describes the chains of impact leading towards indirect deaths, caused by Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank. It examines the impact on population health of the destruction of public infrastructure, livelihood sources, reduced access to healthcare, water, and sanitation, and environmental damage. For instance, 96 percent of Gaza’s population (2.15 million people) faces acute levels of food insecurity. According to an October 2, 2024 letter to President Biden from a group of U.S. physicians, 62,413 people in Gaza have died of starvation.
The report builds on a foundation of previous Costs of War research for its framework and methodology in describing the causal pathways towards indirect deaths. While it will take years to assess the full extent of these population-level health effects, they will inevitably lead to far higher numbers of deaths than direct war violence.
Read the related paper, United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023-September 30, 2024 >