TEHRAN – Researchers say the death toll from the Gaza genocide could be much higher than what the Health Ministry in the enclave is reporting.

In its daily briefing, the Gaza Health Ministry has announced that the number of victims of the genocide waged by the Israeli occupation regime against the Gazans has reached “52,908 martyrs and 119,721 injured persons since October 7, 2023”.

Since March 18, 2025, when the occupation regime violated the ceasefire agreement, at least “2,780 martyrs and 7,680 injured have been recorded”.

In the past 24 hours alone (Tuesday afternoon), the ministry reported that “46 new martyrs and 73 injured” arrived at hospitals across the enclave.

Meanwhile, many victims remain trapped under rubble or in the streets, as ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them due to heavy debris and ongoing Israeli attacks.

The new announcement comes as occupation forces continue targeting various areas of the enclave, particularly Gaza City in the north, where the number of dead and wounded continues to rise.

As the official death toll approaches 53,000, researchers suggest the true number may be significantly higher.

The two main sources of the Health Ministry’s figures are: reports from hospitals, and an online survey allowing individuals to report deaths, including those not yet officially identified.

According to a study conducted by researchers and published in The Lancet, the death toll is much higher. Researchers analyzed two lists alongside a third that they compiled from death notices posted on social media, focusing only on deaths caused by injuries.

Each list included names and, in many cases, age, gender, and ID numbers.

Independent verification confirmed that those named in the ministry’s lists were indeed deceased.

Rather than relying solely on the ministry’s total, the researchers cross-referenced the three lists, covering the period from the start of the genocide through June 30, 2024.

Their goal was to determine how much the lists overlapped. For instance, if a 30-year-old man appeared on all three lists, his death was likely counted.

However, if each list contained mostly unique names, this indicated many deaths were being missed.

The study found minimal overlap between the lists, suggesting the official figures significantly undercount the actual death toll.

Based on their analysis, the real number of the dead could be 46% to 107% higher than what the ministry currently releases.

If this pattern has held since last June, the true number of people killed in Gaza could range between 77,000 and 109,000, amounting to roughly 4–5% of the population before the U.S.-backed genocidal war.

According to the ministry’s data, which international organizations have stated as reliable, most of the genocide victims have been women and children.