More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in 10 months

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its alleged war on Hamas following the group’s Oct. 7 attack, the health ministry in the enclave said Thursday.

The ministry said 40 people had died in Gaza during the past 24 hours, taking the total number of deaths since Oct. 7 to 40,005 – about one in every 55 people in the enclave. More than 92,401 have been injured.

According to the Associated Press, the health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its figures but says most of the dead are women and children. Israel said last month that it had killed more than 17,000 combatants in Gaza

Per the Gaza Health Ministry, the breakdown of identified reported fatalities says a majority are children, women or elderly people. According to the BBC, international journalists are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently, so are unable to verify figures from either side.

In the past, figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health were widely used in times of conflict and seen as reliable by the UN and international institutions.

It only counted deaths registered in hospitals with these entered in a centralized system along with names, identity numbers and other details.

However, by late last year the MoH was unable to function effectively with overflowing mortuaries, fighting in and around hospitals and poor internet and phone connectivity.

The Hamas Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza began publishing numbers of deaths including reports given in “reliable media”.

UN agencies started to incorporate this into their data breakdowns and MoH figures when updates were available.

More recently, Gaza’s MoH has begun to incorporate those reported as killed in the war including by family members online in its overall tally.

However, it also counts separately the number of unidentified bodies among the total number killed.

The UN now quotes these figures, with officials attributing them and stressing that their Gaza teams cannot independently verify them due to the conditions on the ground and the high volume of fatalities.