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.

Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000

A Guardian report from Thursday indicated that five out of every six Gazans killed in the war with Israel through May 2025 were civilians.