Calculations on the back of an envelope

I’m taking a departure from gematria in this post to use regular math, because I keep reading comments in the TOI regarding the current war which say things like “Hang in there and don’t stop until you get them [Hamas] all” and things of that nature. So with this blog I’ll be working out an estimate of:

• how long will that take?
• how many lives of civilians vs Hamas will that cost?
• how many lives of IDF soldiers will that cost?

I’m going to keep this simple so I’ll ignore figures from the UN and other agencies and only use the IDF figures and those from the Health ministry in Gaza. I’m also going to ignore the estimated 10,000 under the rubble, so as to compensate for any over reporting by Hamas and because I know how little the average TOI reader trusts their figures. To review:

• In the last 10 months the current overall direct death toll in Gaza has risen to 30,000 dead.
• In February when the direct death toll stood at 30,000, the IDF claimed that 10,000 of them had been Hamas, and said that a 2:1 rate of civilian deaths to combatants was pretty darned good.
• In Oct 2023, the membership of Hamas stood at 40,000. To kill all of them (not including new recruits), we would expect the final direct death toll of Hamas and civilians to be 120,000: 40,000 Hamas terrorists + 80,000 Palestinian civilians at a 2:1 ratio.

Indirect deaths in war are typically much higher than direct deaths. Modern military academies who study such things say the rate can be anything from 3-15:1. This means that for every direct death, at least 3 people die, but the rate is usually much higher (up to 15 times) in densely populated urban areas, and Gaza is the world’s most densely populated area. However we’re going to be ultra-conservative and estimate an indirect death toll of 4:1 which is 480,000 Palestinian civilians. This gives us a grand total of 560,000 non-combatant Palestinian lives, which is about 28% of Gaza’s population.

Out of the 40,000 members of Hamas, currently 13,300 combatants have been killed in 10 months, so to kill the remaining 26,700 members at the same rate as its taken so far, it will take roughly another 20 months or 1.7 years which means the war will be done about the end of March 2026.

According to the Jerusalem Post on August 10th, 689 IDF soldiers have been killed, and 4,303 have been wounded in the last 10 months, so we can expect a final toll of 2,067 deaths and 12,909 injuries by the time this war ends.

To recap: to kill every member of Hamas in Gaza you will have to kill just under a third of the population, carry on at war until March 2026, and bury more than 2,000 of your soldiers. And this is a highly conservative estimate don’t forget. Now I want to ask all those who think Israel should stick this war out till the very end… are you ready for that?

Think about it. Grab an envelope. Work it out for yourself.