83 per cent of those dead in Gaza war were civilians according to  Classified Israeli intelligence data 

A joint review of Israeli intelligence records has revealed that civilians make up about 83% of those killed in Gaza, with most of the victims being women, children, and elderly people who were not taking part in the fighting.

The investigation found that, of the 53,000 Palestinians killed by May 2025, only 8,900 were identified as fighters affiliated with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This means the overwhelming majority of those killed were non-combatants.

The information, based on a classified Israeli military intelligence database and examined by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call, shows that five out of every six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were civilians.

According to the data, Israeli intelligence had confirmed the deaths of 7,330 fighters and marked another 1,570 as “likely killed.” Most of them were low-ranking members, with estimates suggesting only 100 to 300 senior Hamas leaders were among the dead, out of around 750 listed in the database.

Therése Pettersson from the Uppsala Conflict Data Programme, which monitors civilian casualty levels globally, noted that the proportion of civilians among the dead is strikingly high. She emphasized that such ratios are extremely rare and have previously only been recorded in extraordinary cases, such as the Rwandan genocide or Russia’s siege of Mariupol in 2022.

While Israeli military officials did not dispute the existence of the database or its record of Hamas and PIJ fatalities when approached by Local Call and +972 Magazine, they later issued a statement dismissing the figures as “incorrect.” However, the military did not clarify which parts it challenged, only insisting the numbers did not reflect official IDF records.

The intelligence files also include a list of 47,653 people identified as members of Hamas or PIJ, drawn from documents seized in Gaza. Israeli military sources described this as the most reliable record of militant deaths. At the same time, the Gaza health ministry’s death count—which the Israeli army also relies on for planning—only includes bodies retrieved from the rubble, meaning the true toll is likely higher.

The report further indicates that Israeli officials have at times inflated militant death tolls, sometimes by counting civilians with tenuous or no links to Hamas.

As one source familiar with the reporting process explained: “After people are killed, they are often retroactively labeled as terrorists. If I trusted the unit’s reports, I would conclude that we had eliminated 200% of Hamas operatives in the area.”

Retired Israeli general Itzhak Brik, who previously advised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also acknowledged that soldiers knew public figures were being manipulated.

“There is no real connection between the official announcements and what is actually happening on the ground. It’s nothing but a big bluff,” he said.