In a significant reversal, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have acknowledged the accuracy of Gaza’s official death toll, which stands at approximately 71,000 Palestinians killed since the war began in October 2023.
This figure, reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, had long been dismissed by Israeli officials and their supporters as unreliable or fabricated.
According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published on January 29, 2026, IDF sources confirmed that the ministry’s count of around 71,000 deaths is largely correct.
Notably, the military also recognized that this number represents an underestimate, as it excludes thousands of missing residents believed to be buried under rubble from destroyed buildings.
The shift comes after more than two years of intense efforts by Israeli authorities and allies to discredit the Gaza Health Ministry’s statistics. Senior figures, including then-Foreign Minister Israel Katz, labeled the data as “fake” from a “terrorist organization.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the figures of being manipulated by Hamas, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s longtime advisor Mark Regev cautioned against trusting numbers from the “Hamas-controlled” ministry.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden expressed skepticism, stating he had “no notion” that Palestinian authorities were truthful about the casualties.
Mainstream media outlets, including the BBC, frequently qualified the toll as coming from the “Hamas-run health ministry” to cast doubt on its credibility.
Conservative think tanks and publications, such as the Henry Jackson Society and The Spectator, published analyses challenging the numbers and accusing Western media of amplifying unverified “Hamas propaganda.”
This pattern of skepticism mirrored historical atrocity denial tactics, aimed at sowing uncertainty among Western publics and reducing pressure on governments to intervene or halt support for Israel’s military operations.
The acceptance of the figures now appears strategic. Past conflicts in Gaza saw Israel eventually align with official Palestinian tallies once scrutiny intensified.
Critics argue the current acknowledgment serves to downplay the overall scale of loss, given that the reported 71,000 excludes not only those under rubble but also indirect deaths from the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system—where over 1,700 medical workers were killed—and widespread destruction.
Hospitals were largely demolished, preventing treatment for chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Repeated displacements, acute shortages of food, clean water, and shelter, along with disease outbreaks in overcrowded conditions, have compounded the humanitarian crisis.
Independent analyses support the view that the true toll is substantially higher. A study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, published in The Lancet, estimated that violent (traumatic injury) deaths alone were underreported by about 41% in earlier ministry figures.
Similarly, The Economist—which had backed Israel’s campaign—projected in May 2025 that violent deaths could range from 77,000 to 109,000, based on data up to early May 2025, far exceeding the official count at the time.
Gaza’s pre-war population was roughly 2.2 to 2.3 million. The proportion of deaths, even at the official level, exceeds rates seen in many 21st-century conflicts, occurring over a compressed timeframe.
The war, which has left vast swaths of Gaza in ruins, has been described by some as one of the most devastating humanitarian catastrophes of the era.
Accountability remains a pressing demand, with many arguing that Western governments and media bear responsibility for enabling or normalizing the scale of suffering through sustained support and initial reluctance to challenge disputed narratives.