The Hamas-run health ministry has deliberately misrepresented Gaza casualty figures to portray Israel as having targeted civilian populations, according to a new report written by Major Andrew Fox for the  Henry Jackson Society think tank.

The report shows that Hamas has repeatedly manipulated casualty data by over-reporting the number of women and children killed, including natural deaths in combat statistics and reclassifying men as women for what the study says are propaganda purposes.

The falsification of death figures has contributed to the widely reported narrative that Israel has specifically targeted innocent civilians, the study argues.

“After Israel launched its military response, media outlets around the world began to report on death tolls in Gaza, frequently citing numbers from the ‘Gaza Ministry of Health’ as though it was a fully independent, unbiased source,” the report states.

“In reality, the Ministry of Health (MoH) is under the full control of Hamas. It was established by Hamas in 2007 after it took full control of the Gaza Strip following its violent clashes with the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority. Since then, Hamas has managed governmental functions in Gaza, including health care services through the MoH. Given that Hamas is a direct party to the conflict, this creates an obvious conflict of interest.”

To date, the Gaza ministry of health has estimated that more than 44,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the October 7 attacks and, based on Israeli and US military intelligence reports, the Henry Jackson Society found that roughly 17,000 of these were Hamas fighters. The study claims that this fact has been persistently overlooked in media reports.

“The ministry of health, operating under Hamas, has systematically inflated the death toll by failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths, over-reporting fatalities among women and children and even including individuals who died before the conflict began.

“This has led to a narrative where the IDF are portrayed as disproportionately targeting civilians, while the actual numbers suggest a significant proportion of the dead are combatants,” the report states.

The fatality figures released by the Gaza ministry of health from February 2024 to May 2024 were analysed by a group of international scholars who examined 1,378 articles from major English-language newspapers and media outlets, including the New York Times, the Guardian, BBC, Reuters, and the Associated Press. Their findings revealed that over the four-month period, 84 per cent of those publications failed to make the critical distinction in total numbers between combatant deaths and civilian deaths.

The report also found numerous statistical discrepancies such as the inclusion of deaths due to natural causes on the list of conflict casualties. In a territory where roughly 5,000 people die from natural causes each year, “there are no reports of such over the last 12 months, nor is there any record of deaths from Hamas action or misfired rockets,” the report notes.

Other errors include adult fatalities being recorded as children, with a 22-year-old listed as a four-year-old and a 31-year-old listed as an infant.

“Such distortions inflate the number of child casualties, which is emotionally impactful and heavily emphasised in global reporting,” the report states. “These misrepresentations suggest a deliberate attempt to frame the conflict as disproportionately affecting children, undermining the credibility of the fatality data.

The analysis found that there is a disproportionate number of fighting-age men between 15-45 killed over the last 12 months, an age demographic which closely aligns with the expected profile of Hamas combatants, suggesting that the IDF has been targeting combatants and contradicting claims that civilians are being disproportionately targeted.

The report highlights the implications of such data distortion, stating: “International Humanitarian Law requires that warring parties take measures to minimise civilian harm, but the distortion of fatality data undermines efforts to assess compliance with these laws. The absence of credible data also hampers international responses, humanitarian aid efforts and peace negotiations. Without accurate and reliable figures, it becomes nearly impossible to understand the full scope of the conflict’s impact or to hold parties accountable for their actions.”

Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel told the Telegraph: “The manipulation of events and facts on the ground throughout this conflict confirms that a terrorist organisation like Hamas will distort the truth to further their own aims. The media must be alert to this and report information and events taking place in a responsible and balanced way.

“War is a tragedy, but Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorists who are backed by the Iranian regime that also threatens our interests and efforts to bring peace and stability to the region.”