Israeli and Palestinian Casualty Figures Since 1989: A Sourced, Side-by-Side Look

Hamas was founded in December 1987. This piece tries to answer two separate questions: how many Israelis have been killed in Hamas attacks (civilians and soldiers counted separately), and how many Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military action (civilians and fighters counted separately). The figures are contested, so every number here is given with its source and its limitations. Where a reliable source didn't break deaths down into civilians and combatants, that's stated plainly rather than guessed at.

Part 1: Israelis Killed in Hamas Attacks

Selected Major Attacks (1989–2014)

This is not a complete list. Israel's Shin Bet has stated that 457 people were killed in all Hamas attacks between 2000 and 2008, but a civilian/soldier breakdown for that specific figure wasn't available for this piece.

Israeli Losses in the Gaza Wars

In these wars, other Gaza-based groups (such as Islamic Jihad) were also firing rockets alongside Hamas, so these totals aren't attributable to Hamas alone.

October 7, 2023

Roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed in the Hamas-led attack (AFP counted an official figure of 1,219). At least 815 were civilians. Subtracting civilians from the roughly 1,195 total gives an estimated 380 security personnel (soldiers, police, etc.), a figure calculated for this piece. Other sources put the security/soldier figure between 329 and 373.

350 to 364 people were killed at the Nova music festival, and at least 97 in Kibbutz Be'eri. 251 people were taken hostage. As of the October 2026 memorial, all hostages have returned from Gaza, alive or dead; the last remaining body (that of Ran Gvili) was recovered and returned on January 26, 2026, completing the account of all 251 people taken on October 7, 2023.

Israeli Soldiers Killed in the War That Followed

In the Gaza ground war (from October 27, 2023), 470 soldiers were killed through October 2025. This doesn't include 7 soldiers killed after the October 2025 ceasefire.

Across all fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank), the toll stood at 918 by October 2025, 925 by February 2026, and, according to AFP, 970 by September 2026. AFP attributed that figure specifically to Gaza, but since the earlier counts covered all fronts, this one likely does too.

Separate Israeli civilian deaths inside Israel after October 7 (from rockets, Hezbollah attacks, and so on) aren't included in this piece.

Summary: Israelis Killed in Hamas Attacks (Minimum Estimates)

The pre-2023 civilian figure is understood to already include civilians killed between 1990 and 2021, so it isn't added separately. Soldier losses between 2000 and 2008, and losses after October 2025, aren't included in this total.

Part 2: Palestinians Killed in Israeli Military Action

Gaza Wars Before October 7, 2023

This only covers the major Gaza wars. It doesn't include losses in the West Bank or other areas.

After October 7, 2023

According to Gaza's Health Ministry, at least 73,783 Palestinians had been killed and 174,738 wounded as of September 13, 2026. A more recent figure from the Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA), citing medical sources, put the toll at 74,389 killed and 175,423 wounded as of October 13, 2026, including 1,498 deaths since the October 2025 ceasefire.

The Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. The UN considers these figures credible, while Israel has expressed doubt about them.

An independent Lancet study estimated that more than 75,000 people died from violence in the first 15 months of the war, a period during which the Ministry's own figure stood at around 49,000. Of those estimated deaths, 56% were women, children, and the elderly.

According to UN OCHA, roughly 10,000 people remain missing, believed to be under rubble.

Civilians and Combatants: Three Different Estimates

The leaked database figures were reported by The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call. The Israeli military hasn't denied the database's existence or its figures, but says it doesn't represent its complete data. The database only counts named combatants, so the real combatant total may be higher. The calculated estimate in the table above is only an approximation, since the 83% ratio is from May 2025 and may not accurately apply to deaths recorded since then.

Total Deaths: A Simple Comparison

Putting the two parts side by side, in the plainest possible terms:

• Israelis killed in Hamas attacks (1989 to today): at least 2,400, likely higher, since several categories above (soldier deaths 2000–2008, deaths after October 2025) aren't included in that total.
• Palestinians killed in Israeli military operations (Gaza wars, 2008 to today): at least 78,000, adding the 2008–09, 2012, 2014 and 2021 war tolls to the post-October 2023 Gaza Health Ministry figure of 74,389. This doesn't include West Bank casualties, deaths before 2008, or the roughly 10,000 people still missing under rubble in Gaza.

However this gap is explained or contextualized — by occupation, by Hamas's use of human shields, by the asymmetry between a state military and an armed group, by differing definitions of combatant versus civilian — the scale of the disparity in raw numbers is not seriously disputed by any source used in this piece. What is disputed is the civilian/combatant breakdown within the Palestinian total, as Part 2 above explains.

Part 3: Official Condemnations Around the World

This section looks at which governments formally condemned Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, and which formally condemned or accused Israel over its Gaza campaign. A full audit of all roughly 193 UN member states' positions isn't attempted here — that would be its own large research project. Instead, this draws on the most comprehensive trackers available (the Washington Institute's tally, Wikipedia's "International reactions" pages, and published lists of genocide-accusing states) to show the overall pattern, with specific, sourced examples.

Governments That Condemned Hamas's October 7 Attack

According to a tracker from the Washington Institute, at least 44 nations condemned Hamas and called its actions terrorism in the attack's immediate aftermath. These included the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the European Commission, NATO, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Brazil (which then held the UN Security Council presidency), Palau, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand. In Africa, where most countries didn't issue public statements, Kenya, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo were notable for explicitly condemning Hamas.

Separately, in a later development, the entire 22-member Arab League joined the European Union and 17 other countries in signing a UN declaration condemning the October 7 attack and calling on Hamas to disarm, at a meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia and France. This included Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey — countries that had not condemned Hamas in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Notably, the United States boycotted this particular meeting, and the Israeli government criticized it as a form of appeasement since it also discussed a two-state solution.

Governments That Did Not Condemn Hamas, or Placed Responsibility on Israel Instead

In the immediate aftermath, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, and Iraq placed responsibility on Israel rather than condemning Hamas. Iran and Yemen's Houthi movement praised or supported the attack. Turkey's initial statement expressed being "deeply concerned about the violence" without naming or condemning Hamas directly. Syria voted against a UN resolution condemning Hamas.

Governments and Bodies That Have Formally Accused Israel of Genocide or War Crimes in Gaza

South Africa brought a genocide case against Israel to the International Court of Justice in December 2023. As of late 2024, 14 countries had joined or signaled intent to join that case. A wider list of countries whose governments have used the specific word "genocide" to describe Israel's actions in Gaza, compiled from public statements, includes Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Cuba, Djibouti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Yemen.

Separately, in September 2025, a UN Human Rights Council-appointed commission of inquiry formally concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, something it described as its most authoritative finding on the question to date. This is a UN body's finding, not itself a government position.

Governments That Explicitly Rejected the Genocide Accusation

Not every Western government has stayed silent on this question — some have actively pushed back. Germany is a clear example: both its then Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock explicitly stated that Israel's actions did not amount to genocide, describing the war instead in terms of self-defense.

Which Governments Condemned Only One Side?

Based on the sourced examples above, some governments' public positions have remained consistently one-sided across both events, while others — including several Arab League members — shifted or expressed concern about both:

• Condemned Hamas but has not accused Israel of genocide or formally condemned its Gaza campaign: the United States is the clearest example among major powers — it condemned Hamas unequivocally and has not joined genocide accusations against Israel, while continuing military and diplomatic support.
• Did not condemn Hamas, and has accused Israel of genocide or war crimes: Iran, Syria, and Yemen's Houthi movement fall clearly into this category — they either blamed Israel or praised the attack in October 2023, and have since used explicit genocide language against Israel.
• Positions that shifted or sit in between: several Arab League states (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Iraq) did not condemn Hamas immediately in October 2023, but later joined a 2025 declaration condemning the October 7 attack and calling on Hamas to disarm, while also separately criticizing or accusing Israel over Gaza. Brazil and Ireland both condemned Hamas's attack and later used "genocide" language regarding Israel's campaign, making them examples of governments that criticized both parties rather than only one.

Important Caveats

• The figures are contested. Different organizations define "civilian" and "combatant" differently, which is why the same war can show different numbers across different sources.
• Source leanings. This piece draws on both Israeli government and pro-Israel sources (IDF, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jewish Virtual Library, JNS) and on Al Jazeera, The New Arab, and Palestinian-aligned blogs. Where possible, it's worth separately checking UN OCHA and B'Tselem's figures too.
• Framing. The US, EU, and UK designate Hamas a terrorist organization. Hamas and its supporters describe these actions as resistance against Israeli occupation. Israel says it targets combatants and tries to avoid civilian harm.
• What this piece doesn't cover: Israeli civilian deaths inside Israel after October 7, Israeli soldier deaths between 2000 and 2008, and deaths in the West Bank or Lebanon.
• On the condemnations section specifically: this is not an exhaustive survey of all UN member states — roughly 193 governments exist, and only a subset have been tracked here using available public trackers. A government's absence from a list above may simply mean no public statement was found, not that none was made. Positions have also shifted over more than two years of war; a government's initial October 2023 reaction does not necessarily reflect its position today, and vice versa.

Author's Note

I wrote this piece to lay the numbers out plainly, side by side, because I think the scale of the disparity speaks for itself more clearly than any argument I could make. But I won't pretend to be neutral about what I see in them.

Since Hamas's founding in 1987, its attacks have killed roughly 2,400 Israelis, soldiers and civilians combined. Since 2008, Israeli military action in Gaza has killed over 70,000 Palestinians, and by independent estimates, more than half of them were women, children, or the elderly. These aren't close figures. They aren't comparable by any reasonable measure.

And yet the gap in how the world responds to each side is just as stark. Hamas is almost universally condemned as a terrorist organization, and few governments rush to defend its actions. Israel, meanwhile, continues to receive billions of dollars in military aid from its allies, even as a UN-appointed commission has concluded it is committing genocide, and dozens of governments have used that same word. To me, that isn't balance — it's a double standard, one where a far smaller loss of life draws near-universal condemnation, while a vastly larger one is armed, funded, and defended.

I don't expect every reader to land where I do. The data above is there for you to draw your own conclusions regardless. But I didn't want to publish these numbers without also saying plainly what I think they mean.

Sources

Hamas Attacks

• Wikipedia, List of Palestinian suicide attacks
• Wikipedia, Killing of Avi Sasportas and Ilan Saadon
• Wikipedia, Abduction and killing of Nachshon Wachsman
• US State Department, Patterns of Global Terrorism 1994
• MEED, "Tel Aviv bomb threatens peace talks"
• Gulf News, Israeli-Palestinian tension timeline
• PBS Frontline World, "The Rise of Hamas"
• Osen LLC, list of Hamas attacks
• Jewish Currents, on the Passover bombing
• Israel Ministry of Defense archive
• Jewish Virtual Library, Hebrew University bombing
• ynet, on Gilad Shalit
• NPR, "Hamas admits killing Israeli teens"
• IDF official site, "Who is the Hamas Terrorist Organization"
• Shin Bet chart on Hamas attacks (via hrvoices.org)

War Casualty Figures

• Times of Israel blog, "Gaza, rinse and repeat"
• AFP via Adhadhu, "Four previous Israel-Gaza wars"
• Naharnet, "Gaza Campaign by Numbers" (2012)
• Wikipedia, 2008–09 Gaza War (Cast Lead)
• Palestine Substack, "A brief history of Israel's wars on Gaza"
• The New Arab, "Death toll exceeds all Gaza wars"

October 7 and Israeli Military Losses

• Protothema, "October 7, two years on"
• The National Desk (AP), "3 years since the attack"
• ARY News (AFP), on Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza
• GlobalSecurity (via IRNA), January 2025 Israeli military toll
• JNS, IDF toll update (October 2025)
• Peoples Gazette (via Xinhua), February 2026 update
• ARY News (AFP), September 26, 2026 update
• Bernama/WAFA, October 13, 2026 Gaza Health Ministry update

Palestinian Casualty Figures

• Qatar Tribune, Gaza Health Ministry figures (September 2026)
• Al Jazeera, "Israeli data shows 83 percent of Gaza war dead are civilians"
• Eastleigh Voice, summary of the leaked Israeli intelligence data (originally reported by The Guardian and +972 Magazine)
• CTV/AP, on the Lancet study covering the war's first 15 months
• Gulf News (AFP), on the Lancet study's death toll estimate
• Siasat (AP), on Israel's claim of 20,000 fighters killed

International Condemnations and Reactions

• The Washington Institute, "International Reactions to the Hamas Attack on Israel"
• Wikipedia, "International reactions to the Gaza war"
• Wikipedia, "International reactions to the Israel–Hamas war"
• Al Jazeera and France 24, world reaction roundups (October 7–8, 2023)
• Rappler and Time, world leader reaction roundups (October 2023)
• Jewish Telegraphic Agency (via Yahoo News), "In a first, Arab League countries condemn Oct. 7 attack, call on Hamas to disarm"
• Wikipedia, "South Africa's genocide case against Israel"
• Wikipedia, "List of humanitarian and human rights groups accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza"
• Zeteo, "Who Says Israel Is Committing a Genocide in Gaza? Everyone on This List"
• Al Jazeera, "Who accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza?"
• CNN, "UN commission says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza" (September 2025)
• Al Jazeera, "'Genocide', Colombia says as Latin American states condemn Israel over Gaza"

A note on this piece: casualty figures in this conflict are genuinely disputed between credible organizations, not just between opposing political camps. Where this piece gives a range or flags a figure as a specific source's estimate rather than a settled fact, that's intentional. Readers who want to dig further should consult UN OCHA's and B'Tselem's independently maintained figures alongside the sources listed above.