‘We didn’t understand the goals of the war’: Israel’s inflated Hamas death toll shows lack of strategy in Gaza

Israel is preparing for a new offensive in Gaza City. A western military source described it as ‘another throw of a losing dice’. Photograph: Elke Scholiers/Getty Images

As Israel gears up for a new offensive in Gaza, figures from a classified database suggest the country’s political and military leadership has for two years misled their country and the world about a war that has overwhelmingly killed civilians.

In May this year, Israel’s military intelligence database of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters had 47,653 names. Of them, 8,900 were marked as killed, or probably killed, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found.