How have UN and WHO Gaza casualty tallies changed month-by-month through 2025?
Executive summary
Across 2025 the UN system’s public reporting of Gaza casualties moved in stepwise jumps tied to Ministry of Health (MoH) releases that the UN relays, with intermittent retroactive adjustments and verification notes; OCHA/UNRWA snapshots show totals rising from roughly 60,138 reported deaths at the end of July to over 70,000 by early December, while WHO statements chiefly documented health-system impacts and patient evacuation mortality rather than an independent cumulative death series [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Analysts and watchdogs have flagged that those UN-published totals are attributed to Gaza authorities pending UN verification, and that OCHA has altered how it presents breakdowns and warnings about unverified figures during 2025 [6].
1. July–August 2025: baseline and a mid‑summer rise
At the end of July 2025 OCHA/UNRWA cited the Gaza Ministry of Health figure of at least 60,138 Palestinians killed and 146,269 injured since 7 October 2023, establishing the mid‑year baseline that UN agencies repeated in situation reporting [1]. By late August OCHA relayed a MoH update that added deaths from the week of 20–27 August and noted 298 fatalities retroactively added on 23 August after identification approvals, bringing a new cumulative MoH total reported in late August to 62,895 fatalities and 158,927 injuries [7]. Those two snapshots show how the tally rose in discrete steps as MoH data and retroactive identifications were incorporated into UN SitReps [1] [7].
2. September 2025: large upward revisions and expanding verification caveats
UN reporting in late September recorded a substantially higher cumulative toll—OCHA/UNRWA cited at least 65,419 fatalities and 167,160 injuries as of 24 September—marking another notable climb versus August that reflects successive MoH bulletins and access to newly verifiable locations [2]. At the same time OCHA outputs and UN partners increasingly highlighted verification limits and attributable sourcing: casualty counts in UN SitReps were explicitly attributed to MoH/Gaza sources pending UN verification, and independent observers pointed to methodological shifts in how OCHA presented demographic breakdowns of the dead [2] [6].
3. October 2025: continued increases and retroactive additions around the anniversary
OCHA’s reporting around 7 October 2025 recorded roughly 67,173–67,183 fatalities and about 169,780–169,841 injuries since 7 October 2023, including a notation that 720 fatalities were retroactively added on 4 October after identification details were approved—another instance of the totals changing through retroactive inclusion rather than continuous real‑time reconciliation [3]. In UN reporting through autumn, the pattern continued: OCHA relays MoH cumulative totals while adding caveats about under‑reporting and verification [3].
4. November–December 2025: crossing the 70,000 threshold in UN summaries
By early to mid‑December multiple UN reports cited totals exceeding 70,000: an OCHA/UNRWA figure dated 10 December 2025 recorded 70,369 fatalities and 170,999 injured, and a separate OCHA SitRep noted 70,668 fatalities and 171,152 injuries in a mid‑December update—both continuing the pattern of stepwise rises as MoH lists, recoveries and verifications were absorbed [4] [5]. These December updates also coincided with WHO observations on health‑system collapse effects—WHO reported large numbers of patients awaiting evacuation and deaths while awaiting evacuation, which WHO described as likely under‑reported—illustrating that WHO’s contribution to the public picture was more about morbidity, evacuation and indirect mortality risk than issuing an independent cumulative Gaza death tally [5] [8].
5. What the month‑by‑month pattern reveals and its limits
The month‑by‑month trajectory visible in UN SitReps for 2025 is a series of upward steps (≈60,138 at end‑July → ≈62,895 late‑August → ≈65,419 late‑September → ≈67,173 early‑October → ≈70,369–70,668 by December), each driven by MoH releases, recovery of bodies, and occasional retroactive additions when identification committees cleared names; UN agencies consistently attribute these figures to Gaza authorities and warn about incomplete verification and under‑reporting, while WHO focuses on health‑system failures, evacuation shortfalls and indirect deaths rather than an independent casualty tabulation [1] [7] [2] [3] [4] [5] [8]. Independent analysts and commentators have highlighted the implications: attribution to MoH pending verification, methodological changes in UN presentation, and the difficulty of producing a smooth month‑by‑month time series where reporting and access change—limitations the source documents themselves acknowledge [6] [1].