A classified Israeli military database shows the vast majority of Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians, according to a joint investigation by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call.
Figures reviewed by the outlets revealed on Thursday indicate that, as of May 2025 – 19 months into Israel’s war on Gaza – Israeli military intelligence had listed 8,900 fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as confirmed or “probably” dead.
Over the same period, Gaza’s health authorities recorded at least 53,000 deaths from Israeli attacks, meaning that named fighters accounted for just 17 percent of those killed, with civilians at about about 83 percent of the total death toll.
Conflict researchers say that ratio is almost unparalleled in modern warfare. Only the Rwandan genocide, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, and Russia’s 2022 siege of Mariupol recorded a higher civilian death rate, the authors noted.
Rights groups and genocide scholars argue the findings further support claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, pointing to mass civilian deaths alongside deliberate starvation.
When asked to comment by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, the Israeli military did not deny the existence of the intelligence database or the listed figures for Hamas and PIJ casualties.
Instead, a spokesperson said “figures presented in the article are incorrect”, but did not clarify which numbers were disputed. The statement also claimed the data does “not reflect the data available in the [Israeli military’s] systems”, without explaining what those systems contained.
Israeli politicians and military leaders have long inflated fighter death tolls, at times claiming as many as 20,000 fighters killed or insisting on a civilian-to-combatant ratio of 1:1 – figures that the report notes they do not believe in private.
Meanwhile, Israeli rhetoric has increasingly mirrored genocidal language.
In leaked audio recordings aired on Israel’s Channel 12, Aharon Haliva, the former head of military intelligence, claimed, “The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations.”
He went further, saying: “For each [victim] on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die … There’s no choice, they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the consequences.” The Nakba, or “catastrophe”, refers to the killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 to make way for the creation of Israel.
By March, Gaza’s death toll had reached 50,000; it has since risen to beyond 62,000, according to the enclave’s health ministry. The total number of wounded has now exceeded 157,000.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between October 2023 and May 2024.
