List of civilians killed in the Gaza war

The Gaza Strip suffered significant civilian casualties from Israeli bombardments in the beginning of the war.^[51][52]

On 3 November 2023, at least 10 cemetery workers were killed by an Israeli airstrike while working at a graveyard in Beit Lahia.^[53] On 4 November, an unnamed Israeli official said that around 20,000 people had been killed in Gaza, "most of them terrorists."^[54] On 14 November, two volleyball players, Hassan Zuaiter and Ibrahim Qusaya, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on Jabalia refugee camp.^[55] As of 1 December, 102 UNRWA employees in Gaza had been killed in Israeli airstrikes.^[56] On 29 December, UNRWA reported 308 people had been killed in UNRWA shelters.^[57] Euro-Med Monitor reported that the IDF was taking and holding Palestinian bodies from Gaza, prompting calls for an international investigation on organ theft suspicions.^[58] The organization further stated that Israel had systematically killed hundreds of tech specialists, including "programmers, information technology experts, and computer engineering analysts".^[59] In March 2024, Al Jazeera English's news blog reported that Israeli forces conducted a pattern of killing entire families by targeting the homes they were sheltering in.^[60] An entire family, including both parents and four sons, were shot dead by the IDF in December 2023.^[61]

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 50 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Jabalia on 31 October and 1 November.^[62] Significant civilian casualties were reported following the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, the Jabalia camp airstrike on 31 October, and the Fakhoora school airstrike on 4 November. Other mass casualty events included the Church of Saint Porphyrius airstrike and the al-Shati refugee camp airstrike, as well as numerous attacks on refugee camps, schools, and healthcare facilities. The United Nations stated they had recorded seven mass casualty incidents just between 24 and 29 October 2024 in the Gaza Strip.^[63]

By late-June 2024, a Palestinian NGO reported that as many as 10,000 Palestinians had been disabled by injuries related to the war.^[64] According to public health experts, such as chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Devi Sridhar, the death tolls in the Gaza Strip are likely an undercount.^[65]

In September 2025, The Guardian citing data from independent conflict tracker ACLED, that is backed by western governments and the UN, reported a vast majority of Palestinians killed were civilians since Israel's renewed offensive earlier in March. Over a six-month period, ACLED had tracked reports on losses inflicted on Hamas and allied armed groups from "reliable local and international media", Israeli military statements and statements from Hamas and found that Israel's claim of combatants killed had exceeded what could be independently verified. ACLED report wrote, "Since 18 March, Israel claims it killed more than 2,100 operatives, though Acled data indicates that the number is closer to 1,100, and includes Hamas’ political figures, as well as fighters from other groups".^[66] Earlier in August 2025, The Guardian cited a classified Israeli military internal report, noting that, if the data was accurate, approximately 83% of Palestinians killed would have been civilians. This ratio of civilian to combatants among dead, is considered unusually high for modern warfare even when compared with conflicts like Sudanese and Syrian Civil War, renown for their indiscriminate killings. The Israeli military had rejected the analysis, arguing that militant deaths may have been undercounted, but did not release alternative casualty figures or a detailed methodology to support its position.^[67][68]

Investigative reports by +972 Magazine and Local Call, as well as reporting by Haaretz, indicates that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have, at times, misreported or classified a high number of civilian deaths as "militants". For example, +972 and Local Call reported that an Israeli battalion stationed in Rafah recorded around 100 Palestinians as militants; however an officer in that battalion later stated that only two of the 100 Palestinians were armed. In a separate case, Haaretz reported that an IDF spokesman stated that all 200 Palestinians who had been killed by the 252nd Division in the Netzarim Corridor were "terrorists", but only 10 of the 200 individuals were subsequently verified as Hamas operatives.^[68] In April 2024, members of Israeli Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee had expressed doubt on the figures given to them by the army and later found the army had inflated the militant casualties "in order to create a 2:1 ratio" of civilian to militant deaths. An Israeli intelligence source told The Guardian, +972, and Local Call that they had used figures based primarily on officer testimonies, which likely overcounted Hamas deaths. In contrast, the figures in Israel's internal intelligence database are the only numbers that the army could rely on with "a high degree of certainty" as it uses person-by-person analysis; however, this method may also undercount the number of Hamas deaths.^[68][69]