Israelis and Palestinians Killed
in the Current Violence

This is what the chart looked like up until October 7th, 2023:

Below is what it looks like now. For the latest information on the current round of violence, please see: IsraelPalestineNews.org.

Many analysts say that these figures are far below the actual number of dead. In Israel’s 2023-24 war on Gaza, a report from the prestigious medical journal Lancet estimates up to 186,000 or more Palestinian men, women, and children may have died from Israel’s attacks and its policies which have caused famine and disease in Gaza.

American news reports repeatedly describe Israeli military attacks against the Palestinian population as “retaliation.” However, when one looks into the chronology of death in this conflict, the reality turns out to be quite different.

Source: B'Tselem, The Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. (Visit their statistics page, last updated January 31, 2018.) We refer to IMEMC and other Palestinian news outlets for deaths that have not yet been recorded by B'Tselem.

To see names, photos and more information for the Israeli and Palestinian victims of this conflict, please visit our new website Israel-Palestine Timeline.

See also the UN OCHA report that records the 2,220 victims (67% of them civilians) of Israel's summer 2014 massacre in Gaza. 71 Israelis were killed during the same period (9% of them civilians).

The numbers in this chart include civilians and combatants killed by members of the opposing nationality (and therefore, do not include Palestinians killed by an explosive device that they set or was on their person, Israelis killed in 'friendly fire' incidents, etc.). The numbers also do not include the sizable number of Palestinians who died as a result of inability to reach medical care due to Israeli road closures, curfews, the Israeli closure of border crossing from Gaza, etc.

Playlist: Israel Palestine Timeline

The figure for Palestinian deaths is extremely conservative, since it is difficult for B'Tselem to report on deaths in the Palestinian territories. The Palestine Red Crescent Society, internationally respected for its statistical rigor, reports significantly higher numbers of Palestinian deaths. We do not doubt the reliability of their data, and only use B'Tselem's more conservative numbers because they collect data on both populations.

In the past we used the statistics provided by Israel's military for the number of Israelis killed, but they have not updated their statistics page since early in 2006. In addition, there is reason to believe that their numbers may have been somewhat inflated.

* The Palestinian people do not have a military, so the usual classification of civilian is not being used. Instead B'Tselem provides data on the number of Palestinians who did not participate in hostilities, a significantly more stringent qualification than the one used to identify Israeli civilians. We do not know how many of the Israelis listed as civilians participated in the hostilities. Many settlers who illegally have taken over parts of the West Bank (and used to live in parts of the Gaza Strip) are heavily armed and there have been numerous reports of their brutal attacks on their Palestinian neighbors.

Causes of Deaths of Israeli Soldiers
2005

Source: Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, Oct. 10, 2005, p. 6.
Note: The paper also reported that since 1992, 459 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide.

May 2021

During May 2021, a series of events unfolded which led to an increase in violent attacks on Palestinians in and around the village of Sheikh Jarrah. The graph below shows the total number of deaths on both sides of the conflict from May 10 - May 21, 2021. For more information on this period, see here.

Israel-Gaza violence May 10 - May 25
	Click here to see detailed stats on this round of Israel-Gaza violence.