BERLIN

The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza war could be significantly higher than previously thought, the weekly German newspaper ZEIT reported on Monday.

According to calculations by a research team at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research based in the northeastern port city of Rostock, at least 100,000 people have apparently died or been killed in the war, which has lasted more than two years.

"We will never know the exact number of dead. We are only trying to estimate as accurately as possible what a realistic order of magnitude might be," said Irena Chen, co-leader of the project.

Based on calculations by the researchers, between 99,997 and 125,915 people died or were killed in the fighting in the Gaza Strip during the first two years of the war. The researchers' median estimate is 112,069 people.

The Max Planck scientists compiled data from various sources and performed a statistical projection. In addition to data from the Gaza-based Ministry of Health, they also incorporated an independent household survey and death reports from social media.

Until now, the only official source for the number of deaths was the Health Ministry of the Gaza Strip, which reported 67,173 deaths in the first two years of the war.

However, there is no evidence of statistical manipulation, according to Zeit.

On the contrary, various research teams have previously determined that the Ministry of Health tends to be conservative in its counting. It is now well-documented that more people died in the war between Israel and Hamas than the official figures indicate. Different studies consistently arrive at a high number of unreported deaths.

The Ministry of Health only counts confirmed deaths, for example, those with a death certificate from a hospital. Since many hospitals had to cease normal operations during the war, the ministry now also uses death notifications from relatives; a panel then verifies the information. Victims buried under the rubble of bombed-out buildings, for instance, are often not recorded.

The Max Planck team based their research upon previous findings and calculated detailed mortality estimates. They analyzed men and women, as well as different age groups, separately.

This approach not only produces more precise overall figures, but it also enables detailed differentiation of who died. The accuracy of death records varies by gender and age; women are counted less frequently than men. Official statistics frequently fail to include deaths among people over the age of 60.

According to the researchers' calculations, approximately 27% of the war dead are likely to be children under the age of 15, with approximately 24% being women.

The researchers have also calculated the impact of the war on life expectancy in the Gaza Strip.

Before the war, it was 77 years for women and 74 for men. For 2024, the demographers project a figure of 46 years for women and 36 for men. This is initially only a statistical value.

It indicates that if the fighting continues indefinitely, as it has in recent years, Palestinians will only reach this average age. These figures demonstrate how dangerous life has become for the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.