How many Israeli civilians were killed on October 7 2023?
Executive summary
Official Israeli social-security data, widely reported in December 2023, lists 695 Israeli civilians killed during the October 7, 2023 attacks; that figure is part of a broader tally of 1,139 people killed in the assault, which also included 373 security personnel and 71 foreign nationals [1]. Alternative reports and later summaries typically focus on the roughly 1,200 total Israeli deaths (most of them civilians), but the specific civilian count most commonly cited from Israel’s administrative records is 695 [2] [3].
1. Official administrative count and how it was derived
Israel’s social security agency (Bituah Leumi) published a list of names and circumstances that underpins the December 2023 revision, which French and other outlets reported as showing 695 Israeli civilians killed on October 7 — a breakdown that also distinguished 373 security forces and 71 foreign nationals for a total of 1,139 deaths tied directly to the assault that day [1] [2]. Journalists and analysts treating the Bituah Leumi data as a primary source note that it is built from state administrative records rather than battlefield estimates, which is why many outlets adopted 695 as the civilian figure [1].
2. Why some sources report higher or different totals
Multiple health‑ministry, military and journalistic tallies cited in the months and years after October 7 present rounded or higher totals — for example, numerous reports characterize the attack as killing “around 1,200 people” in Israel, with many accounts saying most of those were civilians [4] [5] [6] [3]. Those larger totals often combine civilians, security forces, and foreign nationals or reflect evolving counts of missing and later‑identified bodies; some post‑event analyses and academic summaries give broader single‑sentence totals (e.g., “close to 1,200 people murdered”) without reproducing the administrative civilian/military split [5] [4].
3. Where disagreements and uncertainty come from
Discrepancies stem from different data sources, timing, and classification rules: administrative social‑security lists capture identified Israeli civilians registered with state systems, while early battlefield reports, military statements and hospital registries captured deaths in chaotic conditions and sometimes conflated civilians, foreign nationals and combatants [1] [7]. Independent aggregators and later forensic reconstructions have continued to refine totals, and some later investigations and summaries (including NGO and media reconstructions) produced somewhat different overall death counts for October 7 and its immediate aftermath [8] [9].
4. What the most reliable contemporaneous evidence shows
The most authoritative contemporaneous administrative evidence cited by multiple international outlets is the Bituah Leumi social‑security list that produced the 695 civilian figure; that number was reported by AFP/France24 and incorporated into encyclopedic summaries such as Wikipedia’s casualty page, which repeats the 695 Israeli civilians alongside 373 security forces and 71 foreign nationals [1] [2]. In short, while the overall Israeli death toll for October 7 is commonly cited around 1,139–1,200 depending on rounding and inclusion choices, the specific number identified by Israel’s social‑security records as Israeli civilian deaths is 695 [1] [2].
5. Caveats, competing narratives and limits of public reporting
Reporting limitations include the chaos of the attack, evolving lists of the missing and later identifications, and differences in whether foreign nationals hurt or killed in Israel are counted with Israeli civilian totals; some later sources and summary narratives emphasize the approximate 1,200 fatalities and describe “most” as civilians without reproducing the social‑security split, which can create the impression of inconsistency across reputable reports [5] [3]. Available sources in the record reviewed here document the 695 civilian figure from Israel’s administrative data and also show why other summaries use rounded totals near 1,200 for the overall human toll of the October 7 assault [1] [4].