Jan 2026: Zero famine deaths and 60,000 newborns – IDF rebuts claims of Gaza (so-called) "genocide". IDF confirms estimates of 70,000 fatalities in Gaza war, including 25,000 terrorists, as Israeli military says not a single famine death could be confirmed, while number of live births tops pre-war level.
That it estimates that roughly 70,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war with Hamas in October 2023, similar to the figures provided by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
'However, the IDF and the Gaza health ministry differ sharply in their estimates of the number of civilians killed during the war. Hamas officials have claimed that approximately 70% of the 71,400 deaths reported by its health ministry were women or children – a figure challenged by independent analyses, most of which place the number under 50%.
The IDF has estimated that at least 25,000 terrorists were killed, according to The Jerusalem Post, reflecting a 1.8 to 1 ratio of civilian to combatant fatalities. That places the Gaza war within the range of major contemporary conflicts and roughly equal to an approximately 2 to 1 ratio reported in the war in Iraq.
Despite a campaign promoting claims of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military reported that it could find no evidence of a single death caused by starvation during the war.'
And:
'...if one accounts for around 10,000-12,000 natural deaths, based on the average number of natural deaths in the two years preceding the war, then one is left with about 60,000 dead due to the war and related conditions. The IDF claims to have killed around 25,000 combatants during the war, which leaves around 35,000 other deaths.
Aizenberg and others have noted that deaths by misfired Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad missiles are within those figures. The iDF recently revealed that about 13% of all rocket launches by the terror organizations in the first 6 months of the war were faulty, falling back into the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, deaths caused by Hamas reprisals against Gazans believed to be aiding Israel are also included among the “war dead.”
The IDF said on Thursday that it is working on its own evaluation of the GHM data integrated with its internal calculations of the number of combatants killed, although it gave no date for when this analysis would be published.
A report published by the Henry Jackson Society in early 2025 showed that the Hamas-run GHM had misrepresented the number of women and children killed in the conflict, claiming that over 70% of all deaths were in that category. That report found that during a roughly six-month period, from October 2024 to March 2025, just over half of all deaths were combat-age men.
That report found “extensive statistical anomalies, glaring inconsistencies, and a concerted effort by Hamas to inflate the number of civilian deaths – particularly among women and children – while systematically omitting combatant fatalities, especially amongst its own operatives.”
A previous report by the Henry Jackson Society even documented cases in which people killed by Hamas, or deaths of cancer patients, were included in the GHM’s list of war fatalities.
The GHM death figures have also played a part in accusations by international groups, such as the UN and affiliated nongovernmental organizations, which accused Israel of causing a famine at various points during the two-year war. In particular, several Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) reports were used to allege that Gaza was at the threshold or experiencing famine conditions.
The Israeli government, along with other analysts, pushed back against the claims, pointing out errors in the reports, which often followed from a failure to follow the IPC’s own methodology and guidelines.'
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'IDF Says Gaza Death Toll Near 70,000, Rejects Starvation Claims.' Newsmax, January 29, 2026.
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/idf-gaza-death-toll/2026/01/29/id/1244050/