Reporting of casualty numbers during the invasion varied widely and fluctuated day to day. On April 10, the BBC reported that Israel estimated 150 Palestinians had died in Jenin, and Palestinians were saying the number was far higher.[51] That same day, Saeb Erekat, on a phone interview to CNN from Jericho, estimated that there were a total of 500 Palestinians killed during Operation Defensive Shield, this figure also including fatalities outside of the Jenin camp, in other areas of the West Bank.[52] On April 11, Ben Wedeman of CNN reported that Palestinians were reporting 500 dead, while international relief agencies were saying possibly as many as 200; he noted that his efforts to independently verify the claims had so far come to naught since people were being prevented from entering the camp by Israeli soldiers.[53]
On April 12, Brigadier-General Ron Kitri said on Israeli Army Radio that there are apparently hundreds of Palestinians killed in Jenin. He later retracted this statement.[54] Secretary-General of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, said that thousands of Palestinians had been killed and buried in mass graves, or lay under houses destroyed in Jenin and Nablus.[55] On April 13, Palestinian Information Minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, accused Israel of digging mass graves for 900 Palestinians in the camp.[56] On April 14, Ha'aretz reported that the exact number of Palestinian dead was still unknown, but that the IDF placed the toll between 100 and 200.[31] On the same day, Israel Insider reported that the IDF gave a final figure of 45 casualties.[57] On April 18, Zalman Shoval, adviser to Sharon, said that only about 65 bodies had been recovered, five of them civilians.[36] On April 30, Qadoura Mousa, director of the Fatah for the northern West Bank, said the number of dead was fifty-six.[58]
Based on figures provided by the Jenin hospital and the IDF, the UN report placed the death toll at 23 Israeli soldiers, noting that only 52 Palestinian deaths could be confirmed, half of whom were thought to be civilians.[59] In 2004, Haaretz journalists Amos Harel and Avi Isacharoff wrote that 23 Israelis had died and 52 had been wounded; Palestinian casualties included 53 dead, hundreds wounded and about 200 captured.[1] According to retired IDF General Shlomo Gazit, the death toll was 55 Palestinians and 33 Israels.[60] Israeli officials estimated that of the 52 dead, 38 had been armed men, while 14 were civilians.[61]
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Subsequent investigations and reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Time Magazine, and the BBC all concluded there was no massacre of civilians, with estimated death tolls of 46-55 people among reports by the IDF, the Jenin office of the United Nations, and the Jenin Hospital.[69] A team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reporting to Fatah numbered total casualties of 56,[58] as disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank.
The UN report to the Secretary General noted "Palestinians had claimed that between 400 and 500 people had been killed, fighters and civilians together. They had also claimed a number of summary executions and the transfer of corpses to an unknown place outside the city of Jenin. The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55."[2] While noting the number of civilian deaths might rise as rubble was cleared, the report continued, "nevertheless, the most recent estimates by UNRWA and ICRC show that the number of missing people is constantly declining as the IDF releases Palestinians from detention."[2] Human Rights Watch completed its report on Jenin in early May, stating "there was no massacre," but accusing the IDF of war crimes,[70] and Amnesty International's report concluded "No matter whose figures one accepts, "there was no massacre."[3] Amnesty's report specifically observed that "after the IDF temporarily withdrew from Jenin refugee camp on 17 April, UNRWA set up teams to use the census lists to account for all the Palestinians (some 14,000) believed to be resident of the camp on 3 April 2002. Within five weeks all but one of the residents was accounted for.”[71] A BBC report later noted, "Palestinian authorities made unsubstantiated claims of a wide-scale massacre,"[8] and a reporter for the Observer opined that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre.[72]
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