VIEWS Director Håvard Hegre was recently interviewed by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) about his latest research on mortality in Gaza, just published online-first in The Lancet Global Health. The peer-reviewed study, co-authored with six other scholars, estimates that more than 75,000 Palestinians were killed by violence in the first 16 months of the war (7 Oct 2023–5 Jan 2025)—substantially higher than previously reported by the local health ministry.
In the NRK interview, Hegre explains how the research team combined a large, independent household survey (2,000 families interviewed face-to-face) with statistical weighting to produce updated estimates, and why deaths may be undercounted when reporting depends on named, confirmed identifications alone.
The study also reports that women, children, and elderly made up about 56% of the violent deaths, broadly aligning with the demographic pattern in health-ministry reporting, and it estimates additional non-violent deaths linked to the war.