Middle East crisis Gaza war

Study: More than 80,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza

More than 84,000 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza War between October 2023 and January 2025, according to a new study. The scientific journal Nature writes that it is the first independent survey to be done.

More than half were women, children or people over 65. The majority of the deaths, about 75,000, were caused by violence, the rest were the result of factors such as hunger and disease.

The figures are based on random interviews with households in Gaza and are in line with other attempts to calculate how many people have been killed.

The survey, which has not yet been reviewed by other researchers, was carried out by researchers in collaboration with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, a Ramallah-based opinion institute that is considered methodologically reliable and is often used in international research collaborations.

False claim about 377,000 “missing” Gazans spreads

Incorrect information about the number of missing people in Gaza has been widely circulated on social media in recent days. These are posts claiming that 377,000 Palestinians have “disappeared” as a result of Israel’s warfare.

The figures are claimed to come from Harvard University, but this is not true. Several media outlets have fact-checked the data. Harvard has never published such a study.

The figure is based on a misinterpretation of a map in a report by an Israeli professor, published in the open archive Harvard Dataverse. Whoever publishes there does not need to have any connection to Harvard University.

– If someone had asked me about these figures, I could have sorted it out right away. Instead, the figure was spread by people who had neither read the report nor stopped to think, says Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental science and author of the report.

IDF investigates suspected war crimes after shootings

The Israeli military (IDF) has opened an investigation into suspected war crimes after reports that soldiers deliberately shot at Palestinian civilians queuing to receive emergency aid, The Guardian reports.

The information comes after Haaretz on Friday published testimonies from soldiers about how they were ordered to open fire despite not being threatened. The information is denied by the IDF, reports the Jerusalem Post.

“We firmly reject the accusation made in the article – the IDF did not give orders to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers,” it said in a statement.

The IDF states that its internal review mechanisms are robust, but critics point out that the investigations rarely lead to any sanctions, writes The Guardian.