A major new peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet Global Health estimates that 75,200 people were killed violently in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 5 January 2025. This is around 25,000 more than the official figure reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) for the same period.
One of the study’s lead authors is Professor Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway, University of London, who serves as a board member of AOAV. Spagat is internationally recognised for his work on war mortality estimation, including studies of Kosovo, Iraq and other conflict zones.
The research, titled Violent and non-violent death tolls for the Gaza conflict: new primary evidence from a population-representative field survey, is the first independent, population-based household mortality survey conducted inside Gaza during the current war.
A Population-Representative Survey
The Gaza Mortality Survey interviewed 2,000 households across 200 sampling locations between 30 December 2024 and 5 January 2025. The survey documented the status of 9,729 individuals who were household members on 6 October 2023, the day before the conflict escalated.
Using stratified cluster sampling and statistical weighting to adjust for age, gender, governorate of origin and household size, the researchers estimated:
- 75,200 violent deaths (95% CI 63,600–86,800)
- Equivalent to 3.4% of Gaza’s pre-conflict population
- 42,200 women, children and older people killed violently, comprising 56.2% of violent deaths
- 16,300 non-violent deaths, including 8,540 excess deaths above projected baseline mortality
For the same period, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported approximately 49,090 violent deaths.
Accordingly, the Lancet study concludes that the MoH figure was 34.7% below its central estimate. However – of note – the demographic composition of those killed, particularly the proportion of women, children and older people, closely aligns with MoH reporting.
This convergence is of major significance. For instance, the study finds no evidence that the MoH inflated casualty figures. On the contrary, it suggests that official tallies may have substantially undercounted violent deaths during the most intense phase of the conflict.
The survey distinguishes between violent deaths (those caused directly by military action) and non-violent deaths linked indirectly to the conflict, such as from untreated disease or medical disruption
The authors estimate 8,540 excess non-violent deaths up to early January 2025. While substantial, this figure is far lower than some earlier projections that suggested indirect deaths might exceed direct deaths by several multiples.
The findings indicate that, at least during the period studied, violent deaths were the primary driver of mortality. The estimated crude death rate from violence was 33.1 per 1,000 population per year. This appears to be an exceptionally high figure in contemporary conflict.
Independent Validation
The results broadly align with a 2025 capture-recapture analysis, also published in The Lancet, which suggested that MoH figures undercounted deaths by roughly 40%.
This similar finding, despite different methodologies, strengthens confidence in the scale of mortality.
The study also estimated 12,200 people to be missing, predominantly men aged 18–64. The authors conservatively treat missing individuals as alive in their main estimates, noting that final mortality totals could change depending on future clarification.
The study emphataically demonstrates that rigorous mortality surveillance remains possible even in active conflict environments. With a 97.2% household response rate and detailed supervisory procedures, the Gaza Mortality Survey sets a methodological benchmark for casualty estimation under extreme conditions.
The authors caution that their estimates are not definitive counts and carry margins of uncertainty. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that by early January 2025, between three and four per cent of Gaza’s population had been killed violently — an extraordinary level of mortality in a territory of roughly 2.2 million people.
Since the survey concluded, humanitarian conditions have deteriorated further, with famine declared in parts of Gaza in August 2025. The long-term health consequences of the conflict are likely to extend well beyond the period covered in the study.
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