IDF believes 70,000 Gazans killed in war, as claimed by Hamas; civilian-terrorist ratio still unknown

The Israeli military believes that the number of people killed in the Gaza Strip during the war, which began with the Hamas-led terror onslaught on October 7, 2023, is around 70,000, as claimed by the Hamas-run health ministry.

A senior security official says that the actual breakdown of the toll is still under review, and it is unknown exactly how many of the dead are members of terror groups and how many people died directly as a result of the fighting.

According to the Hamas health ministry, a total of 71,667 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

The ministry also claims that at least 440 Palestinians died of malnutrition and starvation in the Strip during the war.

Israel denies this, with the security official claiming that these statistics are manipulated by Hamas to include individuals with underlying severe health issues.

Israel, during the war, largely rejected death tolls claimed by Hamas’s health ministry, especially following specific incidents in which the terror group announced what Israeli officials called “exaggerated tolls.”

However, the overall number of those reported killed in the Strip — even in previous wars — has always been considered by Israeli security authorities to be relatively reliable, even though the toll does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Before the October 2025 ceasefire, the IDF said it had killed at least 22,000 combatants, as well as another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

IDF officials also previously said that the combatant-to-civilian deaths ratio remained relatively the same throughout the war, with two to three civilians killed for every dead terror operative.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.