The antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, could be at risk of misleading the Royal Commission after sensationally claiming the Palestinian death toll in the Gaza war was “grossly inflated”.
Testifying at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion yesterday, the unelected political appointee also claimed the UN had revised its Gaza death count and found it to be “grossly inaccurate”.
We’ve fact-checked Segal’s claims and discovered several inaccuracies in her testimony.
What Segal said
Senior Counsel Assisting Richard Lancaster SC asked Segal to clarify part of her statement to the Commission concerning SBS’s use of casualty data from the Gaza health ministry, and if she had “any particular criticism of the statistics themselves that have been produced by that health ministry?”
Segal responded:
“I’m not an expert on that but I believe that it is well-known and even accepted by the United Nations that those statistics have been grossly inflated. And that then, when they have done a recount of the numbers, they have found them to be grossly inaccurate and to not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants and that that has been revised even under the United Nations’ enumeration of it.”
She later appeared to doubt the veracity of casualty figures citing the Gaza health ministry due to the Gaza Strip being controlled by Hamas.
“My criticism is I think they needed to draw to the viewers’ attention that the Gaza health ministry, controlled by Hamas, the organisation attacking Israel and a participant in the war and is listed as a terrorist organisation here in Australia, was the determinant of the numbers. That’s all. It’s just a question of accuracy and of impression that one gives of accuracy to the community.
Claim 1: the Gaza death toll is “grossly inflated”
Verdict: False
The latest Palestinian casualty toll in Gaza, according to the UN, is 73,110 deaths with 173,599 injured since October 7, 2023.
The most recent age and gender breakdown of Palestinians killed as of May 7, 2026, and published by the UN, is 21,638 children, 11,127 women and 5,174 elderly. Combined, these demographics represent 52% of the total death count.
Segal’s claims appear to relate to reports in May 2024 that the UN had halved its estimate of women and children killed in Gaza, and were in line with Israeli official claims that the death tolls were “exaggerated”.
But Israel changed tune in January this year, accepting that at least 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed, and that more were likely buried under the rubble.
Claim 2: the UN accepted numbers are ‘grossly inflated’
Verdict: False
Contrary to Segal’s assertions, the UN did not accept that casualty figures were “grossly inflated” or “inaccurate”. The UN explained the discrepancy in May 2024, which resulted from the Gaza health ministry updating its list of fatalities with the details of those they had been able to identify. It made clear that the overall number of deaths were unchanged.
“What’s changed is the Ministry of Health in Gaza has updated the breakdown of fatalities, for whom full details have been documented,” Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said at the time.
Meaning, out of the total number of those killed in Gaza, the health ministry had yet to identify roughly 10,000 bodies as of May 2024. The UN’s breakdown of deaths per age and gender were updated to reflect the casualties the Gaza health ministry had identified.
“And the Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details of the casualties is ongoing,” Haq said in May 2024. “And so then the details of those which of those are children, which of those are women that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete.”
Claim 3: accuracy of figures in doubt
Verdict: False
Segal cast doubt over the reliability of the Palestinian death toll due to Hamas’s role in governing the Gaza Strip. Haq, however, said the UN had “experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza and in past times, their figures have proven to be generally accurate”.
Numerous UN officials have similarly attested to the reliability of the figures since October 2023, including verification by the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights.
Credible doubts have been expressed, however, concerning the under-reporting of the death toll.
Prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, estimates an under-reporting of the mortality figure by 41%, which the UN partly attributes “to the collapse of health and reporting systems”. A World Health Organisation (WHO) report from May this year noted that “all 36 hospitals and 176 health facilities have sustained damage”, with little over half partially functional.
The collapse of Gaza’s health system has not only hindered reporting, but is potentially contributing to an undocumented tally of indirect deaths, which Australian experts estimated could lead to a final death toll in excess of 680,000.
Claim 4: UN figures don’t distinguish between combatants and non-combatants
Verdict: True
The UN figures, drawing on the Gaza health ministry, do not list the number of Palestinian combatants killed. It is thus unclear how many of the 34,896 slain men are combatants.
Israel claims to have killed about 22,000 Palestinian fighters, but classified Israeli military intelligence figures from May 2025 say that only 8,900 combatants had been killed – meaning 83% of the dead, per Israeli estimates, were civilians.
Dehumanising and misleading
Segal could be at risk of breaching the Royal Commission Act if found to have intentionally provided misleading evidence, a legal expert says.
“She should correct the record when supplying her supporting evidence to the Commission, as she undertook to do,” Rita Jabri Markwell, a solicitor at Birchgrove Legal, told Deepcut.
“Ms Segal will become aware of the error, and if she doesn’t correct it at that stage, it becomes more arguable that she has intentionally given misleading evidence, which is an offence under the Royal Commission Act,” she added.
Markwell warned the federal government could also face a racial discrimination complaint given “this discussion is going on about Palestinians without any opportunity for Palestinian organisations to reply”.
The Australia Palestine Network Advocacy (APAN) said Segal’s claims “adds injustice to the one already inflicted on our people”.
“When those realities are diminished or questioned, it sends a deeply damaging message that Palestinian lives are somehow less worthy of recognition, empathy or protection,” Hiba Farra, APAN vice president, said.
“That is precisely the kind of dehumanisation that has enabled this catastrophe to continue.”
Listen to the latest episode of Deepthink – an hour-long talk with Palestinian scholar and author Tareq Baconi on the trauma of ethnic cleansing, growing up queer in Amman and why the Palestinian struggle is feminist.
Anyone else a bit sick of hearing from Jillian??
Thank you for making Segal accountable for her false claims. Shame on her.