Airwars: Gaza death toll 'largely reliable'
An investigation by watchdog Airwars has found that the death toll reported by the Palestinian health ministry during the first weeks of the war is "largely reliable".
The report used open-source monitoring to independently identify nearly 3,000 names of civilians killed in the first 17 days of the war.
"This painstaking research provides strong validation for both the first Ministry of Health list of the dead and the reliability of social media posts from Palestinians collected by Airwars covering the same period," said Mike Spagat, a professor specialising in casualty figures at Royal Holloway, University of London.
"Neither list is complete, but the 75 percent matching rate demonstrates convincingly that both capture a large fraction of the underlying reality," he told Airwars.
While the evidence suggests that the accuracy of the Palestinian health ministry's figures declined after Israel essentially decimated the Palestinian enclave's healthcare system, Spagat says it adds to the consensus that their figures are broadly reliable.
NEW: Airwars investigation documents where and how 3,000 civilians were killed in the first weeks of the war in Gaza.
— Airwars (@airwars) July 24, 2024
The findings show the initial Palestinian Ministry of Health death toll to be largely reliable.https://t.co/gbbPXPAp9i