Britain’s statistics watchdog to examine Hamas’s Gaza death toll figures

The British statistics watchdog is examining fresh claims that death toll figures from Hamas cannot be trusted.

The UK Statistics Authority is assessing whether casualty data provided by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza should be relied on.

Now Sir Michael Ellis KC, the former attorney general, has written to the UK Statistics Authority to alert it to an admission by Hamas that it has “incomplete data” on a third of Gazan deaths.

He cautioned that these figures could not be trusted – particularly given the recent acknowledgement by Hamas that 11,371 of the fatalities it has claimed to date have only partial records.

This makes up roughly a third of the deaths it has recorded since the start of the Israel-Gaza war.

In a statistical report published on April 6, the Hamas-run health ministry said it considered an individual record to be incomplete if it was missing any one of these key data points: identity number, full name, date of birth or date of death.

‘Reports should not be automatically accepted’

Sir Michael told The Sunday Telegraph: “Any casualty of war is a tragedy. But it is important to recognise that Hamas is a vicious terrorist organisation and their reports should not be automatically accepted and repeated as the unquestioned truth.

“Several academics have already pointed out that the statistics are unreliable. Now Hamas itself has questioned the accuracy of their own casualty figures meaning they may have been overestimated by more than a third. I look forward to hearing from the UK stats authority with its professional assessment of this matter.”

According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and 76,000 have been wounded in Gaza during the current conflict. The terrorist group’s figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Israel has said it killed some 13,000 Hamas members in Gaza fighting, in addition to 1,000 killed inside Israel in the aftermath of the terror group’s Oct 7 invasion and massacre.

Israel insists it is only bombing military targets in Gaza and says it goes to great lengths to minimise civilian casualties. It has defended its air campaign as a legitimate response to Hamas’s attack on its civilians.

‘More care should have been taken’

Andrew Percy, a Conservative MP, said: “For months now, civil society, the BBC and politicians on all sides have parroted the figures from Hamas as if they are fact.

“Despite many of us warning that these figures are highly questionable and pointing to Hamas’s previous misuse and lies and casualty figures in the conflict.

“The fact that even Hamas are now accepting that their figures are inflated shows why more care should have been taken by politicians, the media and others.”

Hamas’s admission on the inaccuracy of its casualty data was highlighted by Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), a Washington think-tank.

David Adesnik, director of research at FDD, said: “It is important to recognise that Hamas is deeply invested in shaping the narrative that emerges from Gaza, particularly regarding the number of casualties in the war.”