The number of casualties in the Gaza Strip is likely to exceed the death toll cited by the enclave’s official data by more than 40%, Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said.

“A peer-reviewed study of death by traumatic injury in Gaza reveals that the mortality figure provided by the Ministry of Health is a minimum estimate. 46,000 deaths is likely an undercount by more than 40%,” he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the situation around UNRWA.

“The study also confirms that the majority of those killed are women, children, and the elderly,” he noted.

MP/