Quds News Network

Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- A classified Israeli military intelligence database reveals that five out of six Palestinians killed in Gaza are civilians. The figure shows one of the highest civilian death ratios in modern warfare. A joint investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call found that by May 2025, Israel had identified 8,900 Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters as killed or “probably dead.” At that time, Gaza’s health ministry reported 53,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks. Fighters made up only 17% of the dead. That means 83% were civilians. Experts say the ratio is unusually high. Therése Pettersson from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program said such rates appear rarely in long conflicts. She noted that similar numbers existed only during mass atrocities like Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Mariupol. The Israeli military did not deny the database but disputed the figures when questioned. It gave different responses to different outlets and avoided direct answers. The database lists 47,653 Palestinians as active fighters in Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It relies on seized documents that remain unverified by independent investigators. Intelligence officials say the database is used for Israeli war planning. Israeli leaders often claim much higher militant death counts; sometimes up to 20,000. But those estimates include government employees, police, and in many cases civilians with no ties to Hamas. Soldiers have testified that commanders label almost any Palestinian killed as a “terrorist.” Retired general Itzhak Brik said soldiers told him that “most” people killed in Gaza were civilians. He accused Israeli politicians of inflating militant death tolls. “It is just one big bluff,” he said. Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada said Israel expands the definition of a militant to justify mass killing. “Israel defines every single person in Gaza as Hamas,” he said. Scholars warn that Israel’s campaign resembles wars where civilians are the main target. Mary Kaldor of the London School of Economics said the war looks like “a campaign of targeted assassinations with no concern for civilians.” Human rights groups, genocide scholars, and even Israeli academics accuse Israel of genocide. They point to mass killings, starvation, and forced displacement. The killing continues even as Gaza’s population faces famine and displacement into just 20% of its land. Israel claims that the war is self-defense after the military operation by resistance factions on October 7, 2023. But Israeli leaders use open threats of mass killing. Former intelligence chief Aharon Haliva said 50 Palestinians should die for each Israeli killed, even children. Israeli soldiers have testified that their units fire at civilians without warning. One soldier in Rafah said they shot at children and women who crossed an “imaginary line.” Experts compare the Gaza genocide to conflicts in Sudan, Yemen, and Syria, where armed groups killed civilians to control land. Neta Crawford of Oxford University said Israel has abandoned decades of international rules designed to protect civilians. The data suggests that Gaza is now one of the deadliest wars for civilians in modern history.

Classified Israeli Data Shows 83% of Palestinians Killed in Gaza Are Civilians

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