Gaza civilian death toll could be as high as 83%: Israeli data

LONDON: As many as 83 percent of Palestinian casualties in Gaza could be civilians, classified Israeli data suggests.

A joint investigation by The Guardian, Hebrew-language Local Call and the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine found that Israeli officials had been able to name 8,900 people killed or “probably dead” in Gaza as members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as of May this year.

At the time, the total death toll from the war was believed to be at least 53,000 people according to local authorities, meaning that just 17 percent of those identified were combatants.

The database used to assess combatant casualty figures is based on documents seized by the Israeli military in Gaza.

In total, 47,653 Palestinians are identified as being members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad, meaning that a little under 40,000 are believed to be still alive