With Israel threatening a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, concerns are once again flaring about civilian casualties. I wanted to break down what some of the previous studies have shown, to provide context.
On Thursday, August 21, writers Emma Graham-Harrison and Yuval Abraham released a report through the Guardian titled “Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war”. I would highly recommend you read the article for more information on what is happening. However, I had some questions when reading it that were not clear to me as someone who doesn’t deal with military issues often, and I wanted to break down a few questions that I had.
Okay, so first: the easy question. A civilian death rate is the percentage of total deaths that were committed against civilians. An 83% percent civilian death rate would mean that, for every one combatant who was killed, five civilians were killed. Typically, you are somewhat more likely to see a civilian casualty rate. These include deaths and various types of injuries, though works similarly (what percentage of total casualties are committed against civilians). While not the only gauge, civilian death and casualty rates have become increasingly popular standards for violence and destruction, particularly since the Geneva Conventions codified war crimes.
Second, how is the IDF defining combatant versus civilian deaths? The Guardian article noted a few apparent inconsistencies up front. For instance, these numbers only included people whose bodies were recovered. They do not include estimates of those whose bodies are still trapped under rubble, who may have been dismembered by explosions to the point there is no recognizable body, or other types of deaths. They also noted the IDF was including civilian politicians as combatants, people with Hamas links but no known active participation as combatants, and that certain combat fronts (such as the southern command) allowed Israeli forces to categorize people killed as combatants without evidence. Quickly: civilian politicians, even those with military authority, are still civilians; guilt by association is not a legally valid concept; and this is just lying. Former Israeli general Itzhak Brik, who advised Benjamin Netanyahu in the early stages of the war before becoming one of his biggest critics, also said that in his experience, combatant numbers were highly inflated and just “one big bluff”. This is corroborated by the fact that, in 2024, the IDF claimed it had killed 14,000 Hamas combatants (“Can You Trust Israel’s Hamas Death Count? | Fact Check”, Khalid Majzoub for Al Jazeera, 2024), which is much higher than the current 8,900 statistic. There is no way for the total number of combatants killed to have gone down unless someone was messing with the data.
Additionally, it is worth discussing the IDF’s use of “civilian” in this context. From a legal perspective, “civilian” is an undefined term. “Civilians” (in this context used to mean “non-combatants”) are people who do not meet the defined standard of “combatant” (“Civilians, Combatants, and Histories of International Law”, Christiane Wilke, 2014). However, the IDF has kept lists of what defines a “civilian” for combat purposes (“Resource: The Israeli Government’s Legal Position on Who is a ‘Combatant’ in the Gaza Conflict [Updated]”, Ryan Goodman, 2014). While they also did have a definition of “combatant”, this redefining of “civilian” or “non-combatant” as something that needs to be proven, rather than a lack of proof they were a combatant, means that the IDF could categorize anyone they were unsure about as combatants, regardless of whether or not they were.
There are also some major discrepancies between how the IDF defines “combatants” and how various independent international resources define “combatants”. As many of the relevant primary sources are in Hebrew (a language I don’t speak), I’m going to be relying on Goodman’s reporting for my framework. Several categories of “combatants” are included in this: active military combatants; people who collect military intelligence; people who transport combatants to or from hostilities; people who repair, supervise, transport, or otherwise support weapons used by combatants; people who have membership in an armed force, regardless of their participation in combat; civilians taking direct part in fighting; civilians who voluntarily put themselves in a position to protect a valid military target from being attacked (i.e., voluntary human shields); and members of a police force.
For almost every category listed by the IDF, it’s actually a lot more complicated. For instance, the Interpretive Guidance of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a document often considered to be the most accessible interpretation of war crimes to a lay audience, only considers voluntary human shields who actively hinder or physically oppose military combatants to be valid military targets. People who position themselves in the way of military combatants but do not physically resist them are still considered civilians. Similarly, this guidance only considers police force members participating in military hostilities to be military targets, while the IDF guidance applies to all members of a police force. The ICRC also notes that some categories of military contractors and suppliers retain civilian status, which goes against the IDF considering almost anyone involved in military weapon trades to be combatants. The Interpretive Guidance also raises some situations under which people with a military membership but who are not active combatants might not be considered military targets (“Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law”, Nils Melzer for the ICRC, 2009). And these were just quick discrepancies I found – the entire Interpretive Guidance is 92 pages long, so chances are there are other concerns that I missed. Furthermore, not even all members of armed forces who are active participants in a conflict are necessarily combatants. According to Article 43(2) of the Additional Protocol I of 1949 of the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and Article 33 of the Third Convention, certain medical personnel and religious leaders within the armed forces can retain non-combatant status provided they meet certain requirements, even if serving on the front lines of a war.
All things considered – from undiscovered bodies to false categorizations of combatants, to credibly doctored data, to only considering “civilians” to be those who were provably non-combatants – it’s considered likely by many aid groups and independent researchers that the number of civilian deaths is substantially higher. For instance, using a method published by medical journal the Lancet, public health researcher Devi Sridhar found that the total number of deaths to be closer to 335,000, compared to the 53,000 Israel cited in the defense report (“Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza”, The Guardian, 2024). This article is over a year old, so it’s unclear how much the number may have changed since. However, assuming that number to be true, and that Israel’s estimate of 8,900 combatant deaths is accurate, the true civilian death rate would be roughly 97.3%. This means that, roughly speaking, for every one combatant killed, 37 civilians would be killed. Again, Sridhar’s estimate is dated, and this is assuming that all 8,900 combatants are actually combatants, so the rate may be even higher.
Third, how does this compare to other major global conflicts in modern history? The Guardian article included a chart, and I’ve included that in this article for reference. If some of the higher estimates are accurate, the only major conflict in modern history to have a higher rate would be the Rwandan genocide.
But I also wanted to put it into slightly clearer context. So I decided to look into World War II, just to make a comparison. Data from that is mostly divided by countries who experienced casualties, not Axis and Allies (or other power categorizations). And there are discrepancies in data. That said, moral psychologist and political science communicator Chris Gad (better known by the online moniker GenericArtDad), found that the Allies likely caused a 16-30% civilian death rate, while the Axis likely caused a 65% civilian death rate. Most data I have found through my own research backs up that these are plausible statistics. As a reminder, the Allies (and the US in particular) nuked two large cities, and the Axis powers (and Germany in particular) committed the Holocaust. The civilian casualty rate caused by the Allies includes the use of nuclear weapons, and the civilian casualty rate caused by the Axis includes the Holocaust.
Now, I am not trying to imply that the total number of deaths in Gaza is as many as were lost in the Holocaust or to nuclear weapons. But even if the low-end estimate of an 83% civilian death rate is real, five civilians are killed for every one combatant. In the Holocaust, the number was closer to two civilians for every one combatant. That is a realistic comparison of the rates. That is what this data means. So, as this war transitions from bombing strikes to ground combat, that is where things stand.
