Civilian death counts in the Israel-Hamas war have been inflated and distorted to portray Israel as deliberately targeting innocent civilians, a new study found.
The report from the UK-based Henry Jackson Society found that news outlets failed to distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties and relied on manipulated statistics from the Hamas-run Health Ministry when reporting on the war.
Gaza officials claim more than 44,700 people have been killed following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, but does not acknowledge that upwards of 17,000 were Hamas terrorists — a fact the media often omits, the study found, citing Israeli and US military and intelligence reports for its data.
The “Questionable Counting” study, published on Saturday, charged that the ministry overstated casualty data by including natural deaths and over-reporting the numbers of women and children killed.
Men were included on lists of women killed in the conflict, while adults were included on counts of child deaths, researchers found.
“This misclassification contributes to the narrative that civilian populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of the conflict, potentially influencing sentiment and media coverage,” said Andrew Fox, the study’s author.
Around 5,000 natural deaths appear to have been added to the list of casualties, including cancer patients who later appeared on lists of those still receiving treatment, researchers said.
The errors have “led to a narrative where the Israel Defense Forces are portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians,” the report states.
The investigation looked at all articles with Gaza fatality statistics published from February through May 2024 across eight major outlets: CNN, BBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Associated Press, Reuters and the Australian ABC.
