A joint investigation has found that the vast majority of Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians, based on classified Israeli military intelligence data.
The investigation, conducted by The Guardian, Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language Local Call, analyzed an internal Israeli intelligence database tracking casualties among Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters.
According to the classified data, Israeli military intelligence listed 8,900 fighters as confirmed or probable deaths as of May 2025. In the same period, Gaza health authorities recorded at least 53,000 total deaths from Israeli attacks. This means 83% of those killed were civilians, with fighters making up just 17 percent.
Conflict researchers say this ratio of civilian to combatant deaths has few modern parallels, with comparisons drawn only to atrocities such as the Rwandan genocide, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and Russia’s siege of Mariupol in 2022.
The findings sharply contradict Israeli government and military claims, which have publicly suggested far lower civilian casualty ratios, often citing estimates of 1:1 or 2:1. At times, officials have claimed as many as 20,000 militants killed, despite the intelligence data showing lower verified figures.
The database also highlights inconsistencies in reported militant deaths. For example, in February 2024, the IDF reported 13,000 Hamas fighters killed, then revised the figure down to 12,000 just a week later. Similar jumps and drops occurred throughout the conflict.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reports over 62,000 Palestinian deaths since October 2023, with women and children making up about half. While the ministry does not separate civilians from fighters in its counts, analysts believe the true toll may be higher, given the collapse of health infrastructure and difficulties in recovering bodies.