Israeli soldiers take part in an urban warfare drill at a factory that was damaged during the Oct. 7 attack, on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border Feb. 29, 2024. (Credit: Amir Cohen/Reuters)
On Wednesday morning, the Israeli military announced that its forces had killed more than 20 Hamas fighters in the last 24 hours, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The military claims the majority of the fighters were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, including 15 from one air strike, while a fighter jet killed two fighters in a military compound in the northeast city of Beit Hanoon.
Israel’s latest round of attacks in Khan Younis, Deir el-Balah, and throughout central Gaza have killed numerous civilians, Wafa reported. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 30,717 people have been killed and 72,156 wounded by the Israeli war on Gaza since Oct. 7 — and in the last 24 hours alone, Israeli attacks have killed 86 and wounded 113.
The Israeli military claims that its forces have killed more than 10,000 Palestinian fighters in Gaza, but its ability to distinguish between civilians and fighters has long been brought into question.
Hamas does not provide any figures regarding the number of fighters in its ranks who have been killed. Reuters reported that a Hamas official had admitted the group lost 6,000 fighters but this number was later denied when the BBC contacted Hamas for confirmation.
According to the latest breakdown of figures by Gazan health authorities, around 70 percent of the over 30,000 killed in Oct. 7 are women and children. So with less than 30 percent of this figure being men, and the fact that its certain some number of those men were over fighting age, questions are being raised as to how Israel has arrived at its claim of 10,000 fighters killed.
Hamas fighters run across the street at Rantissi hospital, in Gaza City, in this screen grab taken from a handout video released on Nov. 19, 2023. (Credit: Hamas Military Wing/Handout via Reuters/File photo)
The BBC’s fact-checking team, BBC Verify, analyzed media reports, footage, and social media claims in order to try to get a better understanding of what the figures might actually be.
According to a report released over the weekend, the team reviewed all 280 videos posted to the Israeli army’s YouTube channel from Oct. 7 to Feb. 27 and found that “very few contained visual evidence of fighters being killed.”
Of all 280 videos, the team could only find one that purports to show the bodies of Palestinian fighters.
The team also consulted individual claims of Hamas fighters killed on the Israeli army’s official Telegram channel. They found 160 posts claiming to have killed a specific number of fighters, “for a total of 714 fatalities.” On the same channel there were also around 247 references that used terms such as “several,” “dozens,” or “hundreds” in referring to the number of fighters killed, “making a meaningful overall tally impossible,” the team concluded.
Another concern regarding the reliability of Israel’s claims is that some experts believe the army might be counting government administration workers as fighters, simply because they are associated with the Hamas political wing, ruling Gaza since 2007.
The report cited Andreas Kreig, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London, as saying: "Israel takes a very broad approach to 'Hamas membership', which includes any affiliation with the organization, including civil servants or administrators."