Hamas Removed Thousands of Combatants From Official Death Lists as Data Shows Six Times as Many Men Killed as Women
New analysis finds Hamas hid thousands of its fighter deaths from official casualty lists, with data showing adult males killed at six times the rate of women
According to Salo Aizenberg’s findings, a striking discrepancy in Gaza casualty data has emerged from an analysis of orphan statistics versus official death tolls. His analysis reveals that adult males were killed at six times the rate of adult women based on new statistical data, dramatically higher than the approximately 3:1 ratio shown in Hamas Ministry of Health official casualty lists.
Aizenberg’s analysis suggests this gap exposes “thousands of male combatants removed from record but inadvertently revealed in this new data.” He estimates that Hamas excluded approximately 7,000 male combatants from their official casualty lists to conceal military losses, though he notes the actual number “may be even greater than that.”
Orphan Data as Evidence
Aizenberg’s references orphan data published by The Guardian, which cited Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health and UNICEF reports. According to the Guardian’s reporting, UNICEF statistics from early September recorded 2,596 children who had lost both parents, and 53,724 who had lost either their father (47,804) or mother (5,920).
According to Aizenberg’s findings, this orphan data reveals a 6:1 male-to-female death ratio across “tens of thousands of data points,” which he argues “starkly contradicts the claimed 3x ratio claimed in the official fatality list.” He notes that while orphan data doesn’t specify how many fathers or mothers were killed (since each parent may have had multiple children), the statistical pattern across such a large dataset is revealing.
Previous Analysis and Patterns
These findings build on Aizenberg’s earlier work examining Hamas fatality data, which revealed that even Hamas acknowledged 73% of combat-age fatalities were male. As he has previously noted, Hamas casualty figures include natural deaths and Hamas-caused fatalities while systematically excluding thousands of fighters killed in combat.
