Gaza genocide's death toll may exceed 200,000 as population drops by over 10%: Report

A leading humanitarian law institute warns that Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip may have killed more than 200,000 people, as new data show the Palestinian territory’s population has fallen by over 10 percent since October 2023.

The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights said in a report that the death toll from Israel’s genocide in Gaza may have exceeded 200,000, citing new figures showing a population decline of more than 10 percent since October 2023.

Stuart Casey-Maslen, head of the Academy’s project on international humanitarian law, said such a dramatic drop suggests the loss of around 200,000 people, stressing that widely circulated casualty figures fail to capture the full scale of destruction.

His remarks appeared in the Academy’s latest “War Watch” report, which assesses conditions in Gaza alongside 23 other armed conflicts worldwide over the past 18 months.

Maslen described the situation in Gaza as “extremely serious”, warning that Palestinian suffering continues unabated even after a US-brokered ceasefire between the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement and Tel Aviv.

“Everyone in Gaza, especially the wounded who need safe evacuation and proper treatment, faces deeply concerning conditions,” Maslen said, adding, “People are still dying in Gaza.”

He also called for an urgent expansion of humanitarian aid, emphasizing the need for food and clean water, secure shelter, protection from harsh weather, and access to medical care.

Although there is broad agreement that Israel has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians since October 2023, Maslen underscored that this figure reflects only bodies recovered and documented by medical teams.

Many victims, he added, likely remain buried under rubble beyond the reach of rescue crews, meaning the true death toll could be far higher than official counts suggest.

Israel kills five more Palestinians in Gaza amid ceasefire violations

Israeli airstrikes and gunfire have killed at least five Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip.

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics recently reported a 10 percent population decline, and while Maslen acknowledged that experts must still verify the estimates, he warned that confirmation would point to human losses far beyond current reports.

“We will need time to know the exact number,” Maslen stressed, adding, “But it is clear that we are facing massive human loss, and we must understand how these people were killed.”

The Gaza Ministry of Health has announced that 72,037 Palestinians have been killed and 171,666 injured since October 2023, noting that thousands more remain trapped under rubble because ambulance and civil defense teams cannot reach them, underscoring the vast and still-unfolding scale of the catastrophe.

In January, the administration of US President Donald Trump declared the start of the second phase of the ceasefire, during which the parties were to negotiate the future governance and reconstruction of the devastated territory.

Key issues, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from more than 50 percent of Gaza that they occupy, remain unresolved, while the fragile ceasefire continues to be marred by near-daily violations by the Israeli forces.

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