Over 377,000 people, half of them children, are missing in Gaza since October 2023, says Harvard-linked report, pointing to a far higher death toll than reported. Image: The New York Times.
A recent analysis published in Harvard University’s public research database paints a grim picture of the toll Israel’s war on Gaza has taken, with nearly 400,000 people, half of them children, now unaccounted for.
The report, authored by Israeli environmental studies professor Yaakov Garb, uses satellite mapping and population modelling to track what he calls a massive disappearance of civilians in the Gaza Strip since Israel’s assault began in October 2023. According to Garb, Gaza’s population has dropped from 2.227 million to about 1.85 million, a loss of some 377,000 people, or roughly 17 percent of the enclave’s total population.
Garb’s report suggests that the official death toll of 61,000 severely undercounts the actual number of lives lost. Many are believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings, displaced, or dead but not yet identified. “The real figure is likely much higher,” Garb writes, citing the scale of destruction and lack of access for rescue workers. Nearly half of those unaccounted for are believed to be children.
Garb also takes aim at the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US-Israeli initiative intended to distribute food and medical aid. He argues that the way these aid hubs have been set up raises serious ethical concerns. “These sites don’t meet humanitarian standards,” he writes, pointing out that most were placed in millitarised buffer zones or behind Israeli checkpoints that Palestinians were effectively barred from crossing. Maps in the report show that four of the five GHF aid hubs lie south of a corridor Israeli forces have identified as a staging area for population displacement.
Civilians attempting to access food and supplies have had to make repeated, dangerous journeys through exposed areas with no shelter, water, toilets, or safe passage, often with tragic consequences.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, at least 450 Palestinians have been killed and another 3,500 injured while trying to access aid since late May. Most were either targeted en route to or near GHF distribution sites, the ministry said on Tuesday.
The Lancet reported that deaths in Gaza had likely been undercounted by 41 percent in the first nine months of the war. An earlier projection from July 2024 estimated potential casualties could climb as high as 598,000. The report’s stark conclusion is that what’s being called “aid distribution” may be serving a different purpose entirely. “Control, not care, appears to be the driving logic,” Garb writes.
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