A man walks through a cemetery during the burial of 53 unidentified bodies in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on February 13, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

More than 75,000 Palestinians were killed in the first 16 months of Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, a toll significantly higher than earlier official counts, according to a new survey.

A landmark Gaza Mortality Survey (GMS), published Wednesday in The Lancet`s sister journal The Lancet Global Health, estimates 75,000 "violent deaths" between October 7, 2023, and January 5, 2025.

The figure is roughly 34.7 percent higher than the 49,090 deaths recorded by Gaza`s Ministry of Health (MoH) for the same period.

The researchers conclude that official Palestinian figures represent a conservative "floor," not an exaggeration. The finding comes as the Israeli regime has for months tried to cast doubt on the casualty data.

The Gaza Health Ministry says that as of February 16, at least 72,063 people have been killed since the start of the war. Of those, 603 were killed after a "ceasefire" was declared in October 2025.

In January, an Israeli military official acknowledged to domestic media that about 70,000 people had been killed in Gaza - a rare admission aligning broadly with Palestinian reporting.

The GMS surveyed 2,000 households representing 9,729 individuals across Gaza. Unlike earlier statistical modeling studies, this research relied on direct household interviews, offering empirical verification of the death toll. The 75,200 confirmed violent deaths amount to approximately 3.4 percent of Gaza`s pre-war population of 2.2 million.

"The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4 percent of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict," the study found.

Crucially, researchers said the demographic breakdown reported by Palestinian authorities remains accurate. Women, children, and elderly people accounted for 42,200 of those killed during the study period - about 56.2 percent of the dead.

Michael Spagat, a professor of economics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the study`s lead author, said the purpose of the study was to determine the sensitive issue of the precise death toll of the Palestinians killed.

"This is a very sensitive survey, and potentially very upsetting [for respondents], so it was important to have Palestinians both asking and answering the questions," he said.

The authors - including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist, and survey specialists - also estimated 16,300 "non-violent" deaths linked to the war`s indirect effects. Of these, 8,540 were classified as "excess" deaths caused by the collapse of living conditions, health care, and infrastructure.

A separate commentary in the journal described a "central paradox": the more extensive the destruction of hospitals and administrative systems, the harder it becomes to fully document the scale of mortality. Thousands of bodies are believed to remain buried under rubble or unrecovered.

Earlier research published in The Lancet in January 2025 used capture-recapture statistical modeling to estimate 64,260 deaths during the war`s first nine months. The new survey extends the timeline and shifts from probability-based modeling to on-the-ground verification, confirming that the toll has surpassed 75,000.

Other independent analyses have suggested the ultimate death toll could be far higher once missing persons and indirect deaths are fully accounted for.

A recent study by the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights suggested that the true death toll of the Israeli genocidal war against the Palestinian in Gaza may be far higher and has already exceeded 200,000.

The data gathered in the study showed that the Palestinian territory`s population, which had been way above 2.3 million when the war started in October 2023, has since then fallen by over 10 percent.

Stuart Casey-Maslen, who led the study, said the official figures announced by the Gaza health authorities reflect only the number of bodies recovered and documented by medical teams.

Many more victims, he said, likely remain buried under rubble beyond the reach of rescue teams, meaning the true death toll could be far higher than official counts suggest.