The toll of at least 30,035 killed, from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, has previously been described as trustworthy by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) regional emergency director Richard Brennan.
The WHO says the ministry has “good capacity in data collection” and its previous reporting has been credible and “well developed”.
But its overall tally of those killed does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Gaza authorities’ last demographic breakdown from 29 February indicated more than 70% of those killed had been women and children.
Not a lot of new information in this article. My summary is that there’s no way to verify either Israeli claims about the number of Hamas fighters killed or Hamas claims about the number of Palestinians killed. However, the two groups’ claims are mutually consistent, with Israel reporting approximately 10,000 Hamas fighters killed and Hamas reporting 30,000 Palestinians killed.
Of course, (30,000 - 10,000) to 10,000 is 2 to 1.
As Arete says in another comment, 2 to 1 is ordinary for urban warfare. It’s better than I expected, actually, given how heavily fortified Gaza is.
There’s an interesting blog post by a military historian here. In his words,
I’m not endorsing everything he says but I think he gives some good context on the topic of civilian deaths during urban warfare. (IMO he’s being somewhat uncharitable to Israel, given that Hamas spent billions of dollars fortifying Gaza in preparation for exactly this and also has an unusual incentive to have civilians on its own side die due to the role of international opinion in this war.)