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A devastating new study has found that more than 112,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its assault in October 2023. This figure, drawn from the most extensive demographic analysis conducted to date, far exceeds the official death toll and reveals a pattern of killing that researchers say mirrors past genocides documented by the United Nations.

The study, carried out by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany and the Centre for Demographic Studies Spain, was published in the peer-reviewed journal Population Health Metrics. The researchers estimate that between 99,997 and 125,915 Palestinians died in Gaza between 7 October 2023 and 6 October 2025, with a median estimate of 112,069.

The findings are based on a wide range of data sources, including hospital records, household surveys and public death notices, and take into account the thousands of unregistered deaths caused by families being buried under rubble or unable to reach medical care.

The researchers found that the overwhelming majority of deaths are among civilians. Children under the age of 15 account for an estimated 27 per cent of the dead, while women make up 24 per cent. Elderly people, particularly those over 60, are also heavily undercounted in official figures.

Gaza death toll could be over 186,000: Report

This distribution of deaths across women, children and the elderly, rather than combat-aged men, is not typical of warfare. It is, the authors note, consistent with what the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation has observed in previous genocides. The study states explicitly that the age-sex pattern of deaths in Gaza closely resembles those seen during genocidal violence, not battlefield engagements between military forces.

In addition to the sheer scale of the killing, the study found that Gaza’s life expectancy has collapsed. Before Israel’s onslaught, Palestinian women in Gaza could expect to live to the age of 77 and men to 74. By the end of 2024, these numbers had plunged to 46 for women and just 36 for men.

According to the researchers, this represents one of the most dramatic drops in life expectancy ever recorded, and reflects the unprecedented threat to life facing the entire population.

Crucially, the study’s findings contradict claims by Israeli officials and their allies that Palestinian health authorities have inflated casualty figures. While the Gaza Health Ministry had reported around 67,000 deaths during the same period, the Max Planck research indicates that this figure likely captures only a portion of the actual death toll.

Unlike the Ministry, which counts only confirmed deaths, the study incorporates those who were unrecorded due to the collapse of Gaza’s medical infrastructure or the total destruction of family units in Israeli airstrikes. Researchers stress that rather than being exaggerated, official numbers from Gaza are more likely conservative and incomplete.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.