The Hamas terrorist organization has quietly removed about 3,400 "identified deaths" from its list of casualties in the war, including the supposed deaths of 1,080 children, according to an analysis by Honest Reporting board member and NGO Monitor analyst Salo Aizenberg.
Aizenberg found that thousands of deaths that had been listed by Hamas in casualty reports from August and September 2024 were not listed in the terrorist organization's updated casualty report from March 2025.
"These 'deaths' never happened. The numbers were falsified—again," Aizenberg claimed. "What happened? How did 1000s of supposedly confirmed, fully identified deaths just vanish? Were some actually missing persons? Sloppy records? Intentional deception? Hamas’ Ministry of Health was never reliable."
He noted that this has been part of a pattern of deception and inflation of civilian and child casualties by Hamas, stating that "from day one, Hamas has gamed the fatality data—from including 471 fake 'deaths' at al-Ahli Hospital in the official count, to claiming 70% of fatalities were women & children (then quietly backing off). Managed fakery, dressed up as precision—just like in past wars."
He also cautioned that the apparent removal of thousands of fake deaths does not mean that Hamas's casualty figures will be reliable going forward. "Is the March 2025 list suddenly credible? No. Dropping names doesn’t equal accuracy. It includes ~8,000 natural deaths; by now it's clear after 16 months Hamas is not keeping a separate list. Hamas may be adding real IDs to match fake casualty claims, then removing them later."
Hamas has claimed that 70% of casualties in Gaza were women and children since Israel's retaliation for the October 7 massacre began. International human rights organizations and media outlets have often reported these figures as fact without specifying that the figures were provided by Hamas or the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, and despite the repeated times it has been proven that Hamas has been deliberately lying about the casualty figures.
Prior to the resumption of hostilities in recent weeks, Israel claimed that about 20,000 enemy combatants were killed in Gaza, about half of all casualties. This would be a historically low ratio of civilian-to-combatant casualties in modern urban warfare, where an average of nine civilians are killed for every combatant casualty, according to the United Nations.