Vanishing Victims: Hamas Scrubs Thousands of ‘Confirmed’ Civilian Deaths from Its Fatality List
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by Rachel O'Donoghue
Palestinians protest to demand an end to war, chanting anti-Hamas slogans, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, March 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Once again, Hamas — which controls the Gaza Strip’s health ministry and is routinely cited as a reliable source by the UN and major news outlets — has quietly erased thousands of names from its own casualty lists.
Research by Salo Aizenberg, who serves on HonestReporting’s Board of Directors, found that at least 3,400 previously “identified” deaths — including more than 1,000 children Hamas had claimed were killed in Israeli airstrikes — have been deleted.
The discrepancy was revealed through a detailed comparison of fatality lists released by Hamas in August and October 2024, and then a revised version issued in March 2025.
These lists, published as PDFs by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, have been repeatedly cited as credible by international media and UN agencies — often without even a hint of skepticism.
“Hamas has falsified fatality data in past wars, as this thread shows — despite the claims of its defenders, who wrongly insist Hamas has always been accurate, and even falsely claim that Israel accepts Hamas data as reliable,” Aizenberg wrote in a post that included extensive evidence of inflated figures.
🧵BOMBSHELL: Hamas’ new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully “identified” deaths listed in its Aug & Oct 2024 reports—including 1,080 children. These “deaths” never happened. The numbers were falsified—again. Examples, analysis and evidence: 1/ pic.twitter.com/30VHnisSQ6
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) March 31, 2025
According to Andrew Fox, a researcher at the Henry Jackson Society and former British paratrooper who has collaborated with Aizenberg, the entire reporting system is so flawed it borders on fraudulent.
“The lists are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable,” he said.
Fox explained that Hamas’ fatality lists are compiled using public Google forms — meaning anyone with the link can submit a name, with no verification whatsoever.
“They’ve been accepting names onto that list with no evidence at all,” Fox noted. “Now, they’re clearly trying to backpedal and delete the ones they can’t substantiate.”
While some inconsistencies may be partly explained by a reported computer crash in November 2023, the scale of the changes — and the lack of transparency — strongly suggest deliberate manipulation, not honest error.
Yet despite mounting evidence of fabrication, major media outlets and even the UN continue to parrot Hamas’s casualty claims almost verbatim, frequently repeating the line that “the majority of casualties are women and children.”
But Hamas’ own revised data tells a different story.
Of all fatalities recorded by Hamas between the ages of 13 to 55, which is the general combat age for Hamas fighters, 72% are male. This supports the IDF’s own assessments and underscores the fact that Israel has been conducting targeted strikes against militant operatives while making significant efforts to reduce civilian harm.
“We know Hamas uses child soldiers,” said Mr. Fox. “But overwhelmingly, the data shows that Israel is targeting fighting-aged men — not women and children.”
A December 2024 report by the Henry Jackson Society further confirmed that Hamas has systematically inflated the civilian death toll by:
- Failing to distinguish between civilians and combatants
- Overreporting fatalities among women and children
- Including individuals who died before the war began
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The Bottom Line
Hamas has lied about civilian deaths since day one. The media continues to repeat those lies. And now, Hamas is trying to quietly erase the evidence.
Thousands of names have disappeared. The deaths never happened. But the reputational damage to Israel — and the weaponization of fake casualty numbers — has already been done.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
