Worse even than it seems: Gaza’s death toll

0:02The Economist

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. And I'm Rosie Bloor. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:25The Church of England has got a growing problem with empty pews. and it's selling off plenty of its lesser-used properties at knockdown prices. And I bet you've seen juice shots on sale recently which claim to bring all manner of health benefits. Our sceptical correspondent downs a few and explains whether they're worth it.

1:01First up, though.

1:10Israel says it lifted its 11-week blockade of Gaza, allowing food and medical aid into the territory. But the United Nations has found that none of that aid is being distributed. Today, one of our teams waited several hours for the Israeli green light to access the Kareem Shalom area and collect the nutrition supplies. Unfortunately, they were not able to bring those supplies into our warehouse. Yesterday, the UN suggested 14 ,000 babies could die within 48 hours if aid did not reach them. But later walked back that number. How could it be calculated anyway? It's been a year and a half of war.

1:51Gaza is almost entirely closed off to journalists and international observers. This kind of grim arithmetic is next to impossible. How many people, young and old, have already died of illness or starvation for lack of aid? These are, and forgive me for making this distinction, secondary effects of the war, what happens after the airstrikes and ground campaigns. But what about the death toll directly from those military actions? Those published numbers have been endlessly debated, and there's good reason to believe they have gravely underestimated the truth.

2:36In any war zone, precise death counts are a challenge and this is no exception. Sondra Solstead is a senior data journalist at The Economist. The reported death toll is currently about 53 ,000 people. The trouble is these figures come from Gaza authorities. and those authorities are run by Hamas. You might reasonably think that Hamas has an incentive to inflate the numbers of people killed to make Israel's war look more destructive. However, you might also think that they have an incentive in being believed, which should incline them to publish numbers that are accurate. The situation is further complicated by the figure not distinguishing between combatants and civilians, and the ratio is extremely contested.

3:20What we do know is that in past conflicts, when Israel or the United Nations have delivered estimates of total debt after the fighting has stopped, it has roughly matched those published by the Gaza authorities during the fighting. Now, this war has been far more extensive and destructive, and lasted longer than any in the past. Many of the institutions that count debts, such as hospitals, have been destroyed. And what new research suggests is that the count from the Gaza Ministry of Health is wrong, but it's wrong in the sense of being much too low. What a recent study published in The Lancet tried to do was to estimate how many people had died from traumatic injuries in Gaza without relying on this total death count from the Gaza Ministry of Health.

4:04So to count how many people have died, the health ministry relies on two lists. And these lists contain demographic information, such as the name, age, and sex, usually, of people who have died. In addition to these two lists from the Ministry of Health, the Lancet researchers also collected a third list based on obituaries on social media. And again, they only include deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza. So with these three lists, they looked at the overlap. So if all 30-year-old men on one list also appeared on the other two, all such deaths may have been counted. But if the three lists had different names, each list might, on its own, be very incomplete.

4:46The researchers found that the overlap was very small, so small in fact that the true number of deaths was probably 46 to 107 percent higher than the official ministry total. This study was based on data from the beginning of the current war to last June. If you assume that the ratio has stayed the same since, and not fallen, as systems caught up during the ceasefires say, and applied them to the current tally, it would suggest that the number of dead is not 53 ,000, but somewhere between 77 and 110 ,000. Huge uncertainty persists. The lists contain errors, for one thing. Since the beginning of the war, nearly 4 ,000 people have appeared on the list and then been removed, indicating that they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

5:32It is also the case that Hamas fighters, presumably young men, may be disproportionately missing from the lists if the group wanted to minimize its own losses, and that would push the death toll higher. Most importantly, though, these numbers only count those dead from traumatic injuries. In addition come all those who have died from lack of medical care, and many now lack food. Any such deaths would push the total tally higher. A definite count of how many people have died in this war will be difficult even after it ends, and it looks like that's not anytime soon. those numbers bear repeating if those estimates are true the number of dead in gaza is not 53 000 but between 77 and 110 000 that would mean that about four to five percent of the territory's pre-war population has been killed i asked josie de lapp our middle east editor what she made of those figures.

6:2919 months into the war, which has been so horrifying, so devastating, it is still shocking that the numbers could be as high as this research suggests, and perhaps even higher, as Sondre lays out. But they were not entirely surprising to me. A brutal war is still being fought in Gaza. It is impossible to keep track of how many people and who exactly is being killed. We don't see this kind of precise figure, for example, coming out of Ukraine, partly because there have been a lot of wars in Gaza and the authorities there and international organizations are, in a terrible way, used to keeping track of the numbers of dead.

7:24But this has been a uniquely brutal war. So it doesn't surprise me that the numbers could be as high as this research suggests. But I don't think you can look at them and not be appalled at what has happened. but the suggestion i think by and large in the world media has been that that those numbers had a little asterisk this is from you know hamas run agencies and i think the sort of the subtext there is that they're they're probably not this high i think the surprising thing here is that they are so much higher if this research is correct if you look at previous wars in gaza it hasn't been apparent that the Gazan health authorities have dramatically inflated the numbers of people that they say have died.

8:13The Gazan health authorities do not say whether people are combatants, whether people are civilians. So it is very hard to know what the ratio is. And that is an important factor in how you assess what Israel has done in Gaza, because there are laws of war about proportionality. And I mean, it sounds extraordinarily heartless and inhuman to say how many civilians you are allowed to kill in order to pursue legitimate military goals. But that is part of the law of war. And so understanding the ratio between combatants and civilians is an important part of that. and we don't have a very clear understanding of that.

9:02Although it is apparent from the number of women and children who have been killed in Gaza that clearly an extraordinary number of civilians have been killed. With proportionality, there are no fixed numbers. There is no part of the law of war that says if you're killing an enemy combatant, you're allowed to kill 20 civilians. It's a judgment and it's a judgment that has to be made every time you give an order for a military action. So every time you are targeting a Hamas operative you have to think about who that operative is, what the military gains are from killing them and the cost to the civilians in this case of Gaza.

9:46And it changes depending on the context. So you might say that at the beginning of this war when Hamas was in a strong position when there were many senior commanders, very experienced fighters that Israel was targeting. Israel presumably would make the case that in order to take out those very senior Hamas figures, they were willing to see significant civilian deaths. 19 months into the war, I think you have to ask, who is left of Hamas? Who is Israel targeting now? in its quest for total victory over Hamas. We know that Hamas is continuing to recruit new fighters. But if we're talking about young men with no experience of fighting, then I think you have to ask, how many civilians is it proportionate to kill in order to take out a Hamas militant like that?

10:49So I think in terms of the question of proportionality, it's something that should have changed over the course of the war. What about the international dimension of this and the degree to which internationally what's happening in Gaza is viewed proportionally? I think that has also shifted. In the aftermath of the October 7th attacks, there was a sense, certainly from America, from Britain, from many European countries, that Israel was justified in responding to this attack with a military operation, that this was a defensive response to a horrific attack on Israel. I think today that view has for many shifted, that this war can no longer be seen in the same way as it was 19 months ago, that Israel's aims, such as total victory over Hamas, are not achievable, that bringing home the hostages is not going to be done by expanding this war, that the plans that Israel is laying out for Gaza are tantamount to ethnic cleansing, and that the justification for this war, for Israel to defend itself, does not mean a justification to an endless and boundaryless war.

12:16You mentioned the number of women and children who have died. Do we have any sense for what the implications for Gaza will be with the deaths at that scale? Gaza has a very young population. So many of the people who have been killed have been young, whether we're talking children or teenagers, early 20s. Ordinarily, killing that number of people in your population, yes, you would think about what is the long-term effect? What does this mean going forward? I find it hard, given the scale of the destruction in Gaza, to sort of get to that stage of the analysis. That the demographics is not... It's not that it's irrelevant.

13:00Of course, this is going to affect the Gazan population in the long term. It's going to affect the Palestinian population in the long term for, yeah, the shape of this group of people. what is going to happen because many children have not had enough to eat for months what does that do to their cognitive and physical development and what are the implications of that for the Palestinian people what does it mean when vast swathes of Gaza have been leveled what does that mean for the population in terms of how they can live in terms of where they can work what they can do. I think that the demographic shift, the demographic impact will be significant, but it feels like we're so far away from being able to imagine that stage of thinking about the Palestinians that I can't quite imagine what it is yet.

13:56Josie, thanks very much for your time. Thank you, Jason.

14:34The Normans first built it. The Tudors enlarged it. The Victorians meddled with it. Daphne du Maurier immortalised it in Jamaica Inn. It outlasted the Reformation and the Civil War. It could not outlast apathy. In the 20th century, people stopped coming. By the start of COVID-19, it had just four worshippers. Its organ was taken out, its hymn books removed, the Bible was taken from its lectern, and more silent silence fell. An 800-year history was over.

15:13The Church of England is in trouble. Its head, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has gone. An even more anxious emptiness can be seen in the Church of England's pews. Adult church attendance in England has fallen by over a third in 15 years. Now, just a little over 1 % of adults goes to services weekly. There is a small rise in church going among the young, but that's mainly a Catholic phenomenon. The Church of England is declining. It closes 20-odd churches a year. Worse still, its critics sense a spiritual vacuum, in its stance on gay marriage, and in its cover-up of appalling child abuse. On the 6th of January, the former Archbishop Justin Welby, who many felt had failed in his handling of that scandal, laid his curving staff on the altar at Lambeth Palace.

16:01The process of selecting a replacement has begun.

16:10Whether or not you believe in God, this matters. It matters to bureaucracy and it matters to Britain. Britain's are, it's true, a godless lot. In the 2021 census, less than half called themselves Christian, which was down from almost 60 % in the 2011 census. But Britain itself is full of God. The C of E is not merely a church, it's an established church, a state church. The C of E has all kinds of power. It has soft power. You'll see bishops lead Remembrance Day celebrations and other things. And it has actual power. 26 bishops in their black and white robes, like something out of Wolf Hall, sit in the House of Lords, where they can help shape laws.

16:49And it has sacred ceremonial power. The crown of England's king is put on his head by England's archbishop. It has a lot of money. It has an endowment of£10.4 billion. And now, in 2025, the Church is choosing a new leader. The process is exactly as eccentric as you would imagine of an institution that dates back half a millennium and which has had in its time not just bishops, but also kings, queens and castles. Less a church than a chess set. The election and enthronement of the Archbishop lasts for months. It involves a king, Charles, a clerk of the closet. It's kind of complicated. Whoever they are, the new archbishop will have a brimming indrae.

17:35England is not always kind to its archbishops, as Thomas Cranmer found out when he was burnt at the stake.

17:44Although the new one will not face that, a full indrae nevertheless awaits. He, probably he, although unlike the Pope, the archbishop could be a woman, will have to deal with those who query the Sea of E's political power. England's primate will have to deal also with the weakening link between the church and the crown. England's heir, Prince William, does not go to church every Sunday and has been said by one palace insider not to feel instinctively comfortable in a faith environment. These are ominously weasel words for someone who will bear the title defender of the faith. In the 1950s, the poet Philip Larkin walked into a church and wondered, When churches fall completely out of use, what we shall turn them into?

18:28The short answer is real estate. The C of E flogs off its churches surprisingly cheaply. One church benefits from, as they put it, mains water and electricity, not to mention a nave, aisle, organ chamber and tower. Another church, as you might expect, benefits from a spacious interior. Both are going for under£100 ,000. pounds. Some, like St. Tawny's, are saved by charities like the Church's Conservation Trust. Others are turned into cafes, offering scones with a little spirituality, a kind of numinous national trust. Some are just too hard to convert into anything at all, since they also benefit from graveyards and quite a lot of dead bodies.

19:09Many just fall further into ruin. Almost a thousand are on Historic England's at-risk register.

19:23This isn't completely new. The Sea of E has faced crises before. In the Victorian era, evolution and geology shook the stony certainties of faith. The critic John Ruskin heard the clink of geologists' hammers in every cadence of the Bible verses. The poet Matthew Arnold famously stood on Dover Beach and heard the melancholy, long, withdrawing roar of the Sea of Faith. What's different now is that the retreat is so quiet. Faith is not roaring, it's ebbing, all but unnoticed by most. But then the Sea of E should perhaps expect this too. There is, as the King James Version has it, a time for everything.

20:03A time to speak and a time to keep silence. In St. Tawny's there's no sound but the birds. There is a time to be born and a time to die.

20:32On my morning commute, especially during winter, I kept seeing adverts for Ginger Shots. Anne Hanna is a news editor at The Economist. Companies like Moju, which is a British company, advertised on billboards claiming that taking a shot of their ginger concoction would help boost my immunity. This tiny little bottle was being lauded as a bit of a cure-all. For£2.50, or about$3, they were saying they could fix things. Anne, I've seen rows and rows of these juice shots in the supermarket. This ginger shot you've brought tells me it's going to reduce tiredness and fatigue. What sort of claims are other shots making?

21:16Brands like Moju and Plenish say that they can provide 100 % of the daily intake of various vitamins and minerals. The ginger shot has powerful restorative properties according to Moju And there are other shots on the market like berry shots, which are touted to benefit your gut. Is there actually any evidence that these are good for your health? There haven't really been any large clinical trials on these shots. However, there's some evidence that the ingredients used in these shots are helpful. So ginger and turmeric have traditionally been used in Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, which is a system of medicine that originated in India.

21:56Ginger has been proven to help with nausea and inflammation. And turmeric has also been proven to help with pain and with reducing inflammation and levels of cholesterol. There have been clinical trials that show that berries can help lower blood pressure as they contain anthocyanins, which are a group of antioxidants. All of those ingredients have been around for a while, shall we say. Why do you need to drink them as a juice? There are some benefits to having them in a more concentrated shot form, particularly if they've been properly processed, properly pressed. For example, with something like blueberries, you wouldn't normally have several batches in a day.

22:38But in a blueberry shot, there are a larger quantity of blueberries than you would normally eat in your regular diet. And that's good because you get the quantity that you need for a beneficial result. In the scientific community, they call that the efficacy dose. In drinking that shot, you get the efficacy dose quickly and easily, which is perfect for a health-conscious, time-pressed commuter. And you very kindly called them a time-pressed, health-conscious commuter there. I think we've called them before on the show the worried well. Who are buying these shots? So the people that are buying these shots are people who are going into the office and are nipping out because they're tired and they need a quick fix to help them.

23:23Lots of people in London seem to buy these around the winter so that they can feel better about themselves. It sounds like a bit of a gimmick to me, but presumably there isn't actually any harm in having these juice shots. It probably, to some degree, is helpful. However, most of the stuff that you get in these shots, you can have on a regular diet. and there are some things that consumers have to be careful about. For example, it is possible that some natural ingredients when had in too high of a dose can be bad for you. The other thing is that when you're juicing anything, you will lose some of the fibre, which is usually found in the skin of fruit and fibre is really good for you.

24:09So the better alternative in that case really is just to eat fruit as we've been doing for many, many years. But let's give them a go. Let's give them a go. I'm scared. Tell me, how are we supposed to drink these, Anne? Are we supposed to open and down in one? Down in one. Really? Yeah. I can't drink shots of any kind. Okay. Cheers, Anne. Oh, that's disgusting. Oh. Oh, my whole mouth is burning and it feels like I've just eaten turps or something.

25:08That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

25:18Thank you.