We've added four new fields to the Gaza Daily Casualties dataset, and the latest values from these fields are also surfaced in our Summary dataset.

Famine / Starvation​

Around July 20th, the Ministry began reporting daily numbers of those killed by starvation or malnutrition. These numbers are reported in total and a subset total for children. These numbers have been reported reliably on a daily basis since that date.

• famine_cum is the cumulative total killed by famine on the daily dataset
• child_famine_cum is the cumulative total of children killed by famine on the daily dataset
• gaza.famine.total is the latest cumulative value from the daily dataset of famine_cum on the summary dataset
• gaza.famine.children is the latest cumulative value from the daily dataset of child_famine_cum on the summary dataset

Aid Seeker Casualties​

In early June (first reported on June 2nd), the Ministry began sharing the number of those killed and injured in the act of seeking aid. These reports became consistent on a daily basis on July 1st. Before this date you will find our datasets skip some dates up to 3 days at a time in June.

• aid_seeker_killed_cum is the cumulative total killed while seeking aid on the daily dataset
• aid_seeker_injured_cum is the cumulative total injured while seeking aid on the daily dataset
• gaza.aid_seeker.killed is the latest cumulative value from the daily dataset of aid_seeker_killed_cum available on the summary dataset
• gaza.aid_seeker.injured is the latest cumulative value from the daily dataset of aid_seeker_injured_cum available on the summary dataset

It is assumed that these counts are included in the killed & injured totals since the remainder when subtracting these values from their respective totals is never negative.

The list format was very similar to recent updates we received. You can download an Excel file provided by Iraq Body Count here that was used as the source for this update. This sheet was sourced by IBC from the Gaza Ministry of Health and formatted to include english names. You can view IBC's announcement here.

Where age was provided in months, we've defaulted to age of 0.

Methodology​

Our methodology is the same as used in prior updates using the IBC list. You can read about that in an earlier update.

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following this update:

Between this update and the last, based on the Ministry-provided ID:

• 58,361 rows had no change in details
• 1,826 were newly added
• 7 were removed
• 12 had updated details

Of the children in this list (30.7% of the total), the following is the breakdown by age group:

The list format was very similar to recent updates we received. You can download an Excel file provided by Iraq Body Count here that was used as the source for this update. This sheet was sourced by IBC from the Gaza Ministry of Health and formatted to include english names. You can view IBC's announcement here.

Where age was provided in months, we've defaulted to age of 0.

Methodology​

Instead of using our own arabic-to-english name mapping as we've done in the past, we kept the translations provided by Iraq Body Count in the abovenoted excel list. We continued the following adjustments to the source report:

• renaming the columns to comply with our previous naming
• adding source u (unknown) since no origin source was provided by the Ministry of Health (in earlier releases they indicated which records were sourced by officials vs. from the public)

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following this update:

Between this update and the last, based on the Ministry-provided ID:

• 55,178 rows had no change in details
• 3,195 were newly added
• 17 were removed
• 7 had updated details

Of the children in this list (32.4% of the total), the following is the breakdown by age group:

The list format was very similar to recent updates we received. You can download an Excel file provided by Iraq Body Count here that was used as the source for this update. This sheet was sourced by IBC from the Gaza Ministry of Health and formatted to include english names. IBC also changed the age terminologies as mentioned in their tweet You can view the updated dataset on our Killed in Gaza page. To keep it consistent with our current age values (i.e. integers starting from 0, 1, 2 and onwards), the original CSV from MOH was used and joined with the IBC excel sheet on the id column. Data consistency was checked using this script before publishing.

Methodology​

Instead of using our own arabic-to-english name mapping we used the translations provided by Iraq Body Count in their excel list in order to expedite the process. We continued the following adjustments to the source report:

• renaming header to comply with our previous naming
• adding source u (unknown) since no origin source was provided by the Ministry of Health (in earlier releases they indicated which records were sourced by officials vs. from the public)

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following this update:

Of the children in this list (31.2% of the total), the following is the breakdown by age group:

On December 16, 2024, we incorporated OCHA's count of settler attacks in our total number, bringing the cumulative count of settler attacks since October 7, 2023 to 1,768. On the following day, December 17th, we kept the cumulative count set to the prior value of 1,736. This continued until recently which has led to an undercount of 32 settler attacks. We've fixed this continuity issue by updating all report values from and including December 17th, 2024 to build on each other. Each report date since then will have been increased by 32.

We've updated our process to ensure this doesn't occur again.

The list format was very similar to recent updates we received earlier versions. You can download an Excel file provided by Iraq Body Count (processing the above pdf) here that was used as the source for this update. This sheet was sourced by IBC from the Gaza Ministry of Health and formatted to include english names. You can view the updated dataset on our Killed in Gaza page.

Methodology​

We slightly change the update method we last reported and instead of using our own arabic to english name mapping we used Iraq Body Count excel list in order to expedite the process. The current process still used following adjustments to the source report:

• renaming header to comply with our previous naming
• adding source u i.e. unknown since no source was provided by Ministry of Health

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following this update:

Of the children in this list (31.2% of the total), the following is the breakdown by age group:

All of these field values are included in the existing killed and ext_killed fields and will be reported for as long as the breakdowns are made available.

The Gaza Ministry of Health noted in their January 11th update that they've added 499 to the number of those killed in that 48 hour period (on top of 32 for that specific time period) due to the decision of a judicial body which ruled on the deaths of a number of people reported missing to date.

As expected in a conflict where the mass destruction of residential and civilian buildings is widespread, many individuals who are reported missing must be presumed dead when their bodies cannot be recovered. "Judicial bodies" are tasked with investigating these disappearances, including verifying the last known locations and events leading up to them. This process highlights the meticulous efforts made by Gaza’s officials to ensure their reports are accurate and resistant to outside scrutiny. However, the result of these thorough procedures is that these deaths are often viewed as underreported due to the rigid framework they follow. For example, a recent report published in The Lancet revealed that the number of Gazans dying from traumatic injuries could be undercounted by as much as 41%. We’ve also provided a detailed analysis of other estimates suggesting underweighting of other factors that lead to higher casualties.

It's becoming clear that the numbers we've continued to report verbatim from official sources are a small slice of the overall picture of human suffering over the past year. It's important to highlight that the official numbers we publish here, and that nearly every media outlet and government have trusted, are restricted to:

• only those deaths that can be identified, and
• only those deaths that can be linked back to an act of Israeli aggression

Any Gazans known to have been killed and who didn't make it to health authorities, or who are long missing and presumed dead, are generally not included in the ministry reporting. Even those names submitted by the public must follow a rigorous confirmation process through a committee to confirm the circumstances of their death (we expand on this in our dataset source documentation).

The tireless work of Gaza's authorities is admirable and extremely important, but it's a very focused view of the impacts of Israel's actions. For a more realistic picture one must use these official numbers as one of many inputs alongside other important factors like:

• malnutrition
• infectious diseases
• maternal & neonatal health problems
• untreated or unsupported pre-existing conditions
• unrecovered or buried bodies (more than 60% of Gaza's buildings are damaged or destroyed)

The toll of these combined factors are believed to far exceed the official numbers & names we've been reporting. Consider the following estimates provided by researchers:

The following was mentioned in the appendix to an October 2, 2024 letter to the US administration from medical professionals citing BMC Medicine research:

Deaths from military violence are usually the smaller share, and indeed civilian excess mortality in wars can be 25 times higher than deaths from violence.

By this measure, if you take Israel's own estimate that "at least 17,000" of the reported deaths were Hamas fighters, that implies almost half a million in excess civilian mortality.

From The Lancet, a medical and public health journal:

“it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

From the above-noted appendix (page 6) based on IPC reports of severe food insecurity:

In total it is likely that 62,413 people have died of starvation and its compilations in Gaza from October 7, 2023 to September 30, 2024. Most of these will have been young children.

It's important to note that the vast majority of these estimated deaths would not be included in the daily casualties reports or periodical names list we've published here.

We will continue to aggregate and publish the reports from authorities in Gaza as we have, though we will be making more of an effort to put those numbers in context and with clearer caveats. We encourage all of those who rely on what we publish to take the same level of care.

We recommend reading Estimating the Death Toll of the War on Gaza for more on this topic.

The list format was very similar to recent updates we received on the Ministry of Health's telegram channel. You can download the PDF here that was used as the source for this update. You can view the updated dataset on our Killed in Gaza page.

We noted the following changes to their reporting format from the last update:

• they've added a new source value to each record labeled either "judicial committee" or "house committee" which accounted for less than 5% of the records - the vast majority are still attributed to the Ministry of Health

Methodology​

We maintained the update method we last reported and continue to perform the following adjustments to the source report:

• normalizing the date of birth date format to YYYY-MM-DD
• converting the source field from arabic to an english abbreviation
• converting the sex/gender field from arabic to an english abbreviation
• adding the english name translation using our existing lookup tables

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following this update:

Of the children in this list (33% of the total), the following is the breakdown by age group:

The new list was in a PDF format like the recent updates. You can download the Ministry of Health PDF here that was used as the source for this update.

We noted the following changes to their reporting format from the last update:

• they added back the "source" column we previously used to track public submissions vs. official sourcing, so we've accepted these values which may overwrite values previously reported as "unknown" for this column in our prior list
• they added back the date of birth field and kept the age

Changes to Update Methodology​

In the past we accepted a subset of records in order to avoid having to verify each update, by not accepting record changes which were drastically different (by some arbitrary change threshold, like for the arabic name for example). This kind of reconciliation has diminishing benefits now that the ministry's reporting format has mostly standardized. We also want to defer to the official source of truth, rather than introduce our own decisions to their processes. For that reason you may notice the following main differences in output:

• where we generated IDs for records where that field was missing, the field will now be empty - we did not consider this a breaking change given the vast majority of records have IDs
• most records saw small age changes reflecting our wholesale acceptance of their record values - in the past we adjusted these based on the availability of data in prior reports and validation issues we saw when comparing date of births, but the reference date we used may have accounted for a discrepancy as well

Otherwise the main changes we make to their reporting include:

• normalizing the date of birth date format to YYYY-MM-DD
• converting the source field from arabic to an english abbreviation
• adding the english name translation using our existing lookup tables

Change Summary​

We've issued this update on two different dates, a partial list update in August and one in early September.

The following tables summarize the updated demographics of the Killed in Gaza list following the latest update on September 7th, 2024:

In the event of a skipped reporting date like the scenarios noted above, you'll see a new report_period field indicating 48 hours for the consolidated report and 0 hours for the skipped report. For example: August 17th would have 48 hours and August 16th would have 0 hours. We're maintaining the skipped report dates for consistency and to reflect the cumulative values on those dates regardless of a report presence.

All existing report dates covering 24 hour periods will have a value of 24 for report_period.

The new list was in a PDF format that differed slightly from the prior lists that were distributed in CSV & PDF format. You can download the Ministry of Health PDF here that was used as the source for this update.

We noted the following changes to their reporting format:

• they dropped the "source" column we previously used to track public submissions vs. official sourcing, so we added a new "unknown" value to our existing source field if a new record has no source attribute (but we've kept the old value if the record already existed)
• they removed the date of birth field and only reported age
• a number of records did not have an identifier, so we generated one based on the report date and their reported index (prefixed with missing-)

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the demographic changes in our Killed in Gaza list following its merge with the abovenoted Ministry list:

Demographics of Our List Before Merge​

Demographics of Newly Added Records​

Demographics of Our Updated List After Merge​

Demographics of Removed Records​

184 records in our prior list were not present in the latest list release (by identification number) so we removed them.

We believe the higher ratio of Men in this revised list reflects the addition of community-reported sourcing. These records likely include more of those lost or missing for which remains were not received by health authorities as was the case for most of the records in the initial list distributed in January.

Merge Methodology / Commentary​

Our methodology for updating existing records and accepting new ones didn't change and we detailed our approach in our prior April 13th update.

Where there were changes in names for existing records by identification ID within our accepted threshold of 30%, the breakdown was as follows:

(the change threshold upper bound means that 20% would include a 12% or 18% change to the original name)

In terms of overall types of record changes across those already in our list at the time of merge, the breakdown was as follows:

• celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom;
• assess the state of press freedom throughout the world;
• defend the media from attacks on their independence;
• and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty

As of today and according to government sources in Gaza, 141 journalists & media workers have made the ultimate sacrifice in their efforts documenting what's happening in Gaza. Israel and its military have shown time and again that they actively target these essential workers and their families to prevent their stories from getting out to the world.

Their names follow below (or download the full CSV).

• Aaid al-Najar • عائد النجار
• Aasm al-Barash • عاصم البرش
• Aasm Kamal Mousa • عاصم كمال موسى
• Abd Aodah • عبدالكريم عودة
• Abdal-hadi Habib • عبدالهادي حبيب
• Abdalihamaid Aliqurinaoi • عبدالحميد القريناوي
• Abdalrahamun Saymaa • عبدالرحمن صايمة
• Abdalrahamun Shehab • عبدالرحمن شهاب
• Abdul-halim Aodh • عبدالحليم عوض
• Abdul-wahab Aoni Abu Aun • عبدالوهاب عوني أبو عون
• Abdullah Alwan • عبدالله علوان
• Abdullah Bares • عبدالله بريص
• Abdullah Daroish • عبدالله درويش
• Adel Zarab • عادل زعرب
• Adham Husaonah • أدهم حسونة
• Ahmed Abu Absah • أحمد أبو عبسة
• Ahmed Abu Mhadi • أحمد أبو مهادي
• Ahmed Aliqura • أحمد القرا
• Ahmed Badir • أحمد بدير
• Ahmed Fatima • أحمد فطيمة
• Ahmed Jamal al-Madhoun • أحمد جمال المدهون
• Ahmed Khair Addeen • أحمد خير الدين
• Ahmed Shehab • أحمد شهاب
• Alaa Aataallah • علا عطاالله
• Alaa Hassan Alhmus • آلاء حسن الهمص
• Alaaa Alnmar • علاء النمر
• Ali Ashour • علي عاشور
• Ali Nisaman • علي نسمان
• Ali Salem Abu Ajwa • علي سالم أبو عجوة
• Amal Zuhad • أمل زهد
• Amaro Abu Haya • عمرو أبو حية
• Anas Abu Shamala • أنس أبو شمالة
• Angham Ahmed Adwan • أنغام أحمد عدوان
• Assad Shmlkh • أسعد شملخ
• Ayat Khadoura • آيات خضورة
• Bilal Jadallah • بلال جادالله
• Dr. Mahmoud Emad Issa • د. محمود عماد عيسى
• Dr. Rizq Alghrablai • د. رزق الغرابلي
• Dr. Zaid Abu Zaid • د. زيد أبو زايد
• Duaa Jabbour • دعاء الجبور
• Duaa Shraf • دعاء شرف
• Emad Alohaidi • عماد الوحيدي
• Essam al-Loulo • عصام اللولو
• Essam Bhar • عصام بهار
• Eyad Ahmed Alrawagh • إياد أحمد الرواغ
• Eyad Motar • اياد مطر
• Fawad Abu Khamish • فؤاد أبو خماش
• Hamadah al-Yaziji • حمادة اليازجي
• Hamzah Wael Aldhdoh • حمزة وائل الدحدوح
• Hanan Aiad • حنان عياد
• Hani al-Madhoun • هاني المدهون
• Hanin Aliqtshan • حنين القطشان
• Hassan Farajallah • حسان فرجالله
• Heba Alabdlah • هبة العبادلة
• Hitham Harara • هيثم حرارة
• Hsham Alnwajhah • هشام النواجحة
• Hthifah al-Najar • حذيفة النجار
• Hthifah Lolo • حذيفة لولو
• Husam Ammar • حسام عمار
• Husam Mubarak • حسام مبارك
• Husaonah Esleem • حسونة إسليم
• Ibrahem Lafii • ابراهيم لافي
• Ikram al-Shafi'i • أكرم الشافعي
• Iman al-Aqailai • إيمان العقيلي
• Jabr Abu Hadaros • جبر أبو هدروس
• Jamal Alfaqaaoi • جمال الفقعاوي
• Jamal Hniah • جمال هنية
• Khalil Abu Aathra • خليل أبو عاذرة
• Mahmoud Abu Tharefa • محمود أبو ظريفة
• Mahmoud Moshtaha • محمود مشتهى
• Mahmoud Motar • محمود مطر
• Mahmoud Salem • محمود سالم
• Majed Kshko • ماجد كشكو
• Marawan Alswaf • مروان الصواف
• Mjad Arnads • مجد عرندس
• Mousa al-Barash • موسى البرش
• Mshal Shahwan • مشعل شهوان
• Muhammad Abdal-fattah Aataallah • محمد عبدالفتاح عطاالله
• Muhammad Abdalkhaliq Alaf • محمد عبدالخالق العف
• Muhammad Abu Dayra • محمد أبو داير
• Muhammad Abu Hassira • محمد أبو حصيرة
• Muhammad Abu Hatab • محمد أبو حطب
• Muhammad Abu huwaidi • محمد أبو هويدي
• Muhammad Abu Motar • محمد أبو مطر
• Muhammad Abu Rizq • محمد أبو رزق
• Muhammad Abu Sakheel • محمد أبو سخيل
• Muhammad Abu Samra • محمد أبو سمرة
• Muhammad Aiish • محمد عياش
• Muhammad al-Jaja • محمد الجاجة
• Muhammad al-Salhi • محمد الصالحي
• Muhammad Albiari • محمد البياري
• Muhammad Alhasani • محمد الحسني
• Muhammad Ali • محمد علي
• Muhammad Alrifi • محمد الريفي
• Muhammad Alsaid Abu Sakheel • محمد السيد أبو سخيل
• Muhammad Alshoarabji • محمد الشوربجي
• Muhammad Althalatheeny • محمد الثلاثيني
• Muhammad Alzq • محمد الزق
• Muhammad Baloshah • محمد بعلوشة
• Muhammad Bsam Aljml • محمد بسام الجمل
• Muhammad Farajallah • محمد فرجالله
• Muhammad Jarghoun • محمد جرغون
• Muhammad Khair Addeen • محمد خير الدين
• Muhammad Khidr Salama • محمد خضر سلامة
• Muhammad Labad • محمد لبد
• Muhammad Raslan Shanyoura • محمد رسلان شنيورة
• Muhammad Tishreen Yaghi • محمد تشرين ياغي
• Muhammad Yunus al-Zaytouniyah • محمد يونس الزيتونية
• Muntsar Alswaf • منتصر الصواف
• Musab Abu Zaid • مصعب أبو زايد
• Musab Ashour • مصعب عاشور
• Mustafa Alnqaib • مصطفى النقيب
• Mustafa Alswaf • مصطفى الصواف
• Mustafa Bkir • مصطفى بكير
• Mustafa Thraia • مصطفى ثريا
• Nadr Alnazlai • نادر النزلي
• Nafath Abd al-Jawad • نافذ عبد الجواد
• Nizmai Alnadiam • نظمي النديم
• Nrmain Qawas • نرمين قواس
• Rajab Alnqaib • رجب النقيب
• Rami Badir • رامي بدير
• Rushdi Alsraj • رشدي السراج
• Saeed Altoil • سعيد الطويل
• Salam Mema • سلام ميمة
• Salma Mukhiamar • سلمى مخيمر
• Samaih al-Nadi • سميح النادي
• Samer Abu Daqqa • سامر أبو دقة
• Sari Munasoar • ساري منصور
• Sayed Halabi • سائد حلبي
• Shaimaa Aljzar • شيماء الجزار
• Sharif Akasha • شريف عكاشة
• Tariq Alsaid Abu Sakheel • طارق السيد أبو سخيل
• Wael Rajab Abu Fanonna • وائل رجب أبو فنونة
• Yahya Abu Manih • يحيى أبو منيع
• Yaqob al-Barash • يعقوب البرش
• Yasr Abu Namoos • ياسر أبو ناموس
• Yasr Mmdoh • ياسر ممدوح
• Yazin Alzoidi • يزن الزويدي
• Zahir al-Afghani • زاهر الأفغاني

You can read more about some of these individuals and how they lived, worked, and were killed, through the Committee to Protect Journalists who have a searchable database and Israel/Gaza tracker page.

You can visit the Press Killed in Gaza dataset page to learn more about how we source updates and find other ways to work with the list. We'll continue to update the dataset as long as the attacks are ongoing and the Gaza Media Office provides updates.

The new list was in a PDF format that differed slightly from the initial lists that were distributed in CSV format. It also included the source of the record being one of either the Ministry of Health ("سجالت وزارة الصحة"), or a submission made from the public ("تبيلغ ذوي الشهداء"). You can download the Ministry of Health PDF here. You can also download our Killed in Gaza list from before in CSV format here to compare how individual records may have changed.

We've added a new source field to the records to indicate the reported source of the record as noted above.

Change Summary​

The following tables summarize the demographic changes in our Killed in Gaza list following its merge with the abovenoted Ministry list:

Demographics of Our List Before Merge​

Demographics of Newly Added Records​

Demographics of Our Updated List After Merge​

Demographics of Removed Records​

195 records in our prior list were not present in the latest list release (by identification number) so we removed them.

We believe the higher ratio of Men in this revised list reflects the addition of community-reported sourcing. These records likely include more of those lost or missing for which remains were not received by health authorities as was the case for most of the records in the initial list distributed in January.

Merge Methodology / Commentary​

Incorporating the new list required a few steps:

1. Parse the tabular data from the PDF
2. Clean the parsed data for data format inconsistencies
3. Render the data in a format comparable to our existing list
4. Reconcile record conflicts & changes
5. Merge and rewrite our existing source list

Commentary on our approach for some of the steps follows.

Cleaning the Data​

At this stage we worked to determine common issues with the parsed data and found the following cases:

• date of birth formats were not standardized (ie: long year vs. short year)
  • we worked to normalize these, and if the format was hard to decipher we validated against the provided age
• age was sometimes repeated in both the age and date of birth columns (no date of birth)
  • we removed any age values from the date of birth column
• identification number field sometimes had non-number values or was clearly invalid
  • we dropped these records
• date of birth field was full of hashes (#)
  • we removed these and left the date of birth empty

This was an iterative process of gathering stats, updating cleaning logic, and reviewing the output in our standard format to assess how to repeat with refined logic.

Reconciling Conflicts & Changes​

We focused on assessing record conflicts based on the provided identification number only. If our existing list had a record with the same identification value, we checked the field changes (the "diff") to determine whether the change was acceptable using the following methodology:

• if the age only changed by a year, we allowed the change as it's likely a reference date or rounding issue (the initial Ministry list was provided in a form that had an unfixed reference date of the current day and our prior list fixed that to January 5, 2024 per source dating)
• if a comparison of names using Levenshtein Distance led to a change amounting to less than 30% of the original name's length, we allowed the change, but only if the new name didn't rely more on our fallback auto translation library than it did before
• if an age or date of birth was not on the existing record and it was on the incoming one, we accepted it

This process helped us narrow in on specific record sets to refine our approach.

Where there were changes in names for existing records by identification ID within our accepted threshold of 30%, the breakdown was as follows:

(the change threshold upper bound means that 20% would include a 12% or 18% change to the original name)

In terms of overall types of record changes across those already in our list at the time of merge, the breakdown was as follows:

For the West Bank in particular, for which our dataset is affected, Flash Reports will only be issued on a weekly basis and the wider report on the region will be issued at most three times a week.

Going forward we will continue to update our daily datasets for Gaza and the West Bank at the same time, but we've now introduced a new field to the West Bank daily casualties dataset called flash_source. This field will be one of the following values:

• un which indicates that the values for the given date were reported in a UN OCHA Flash Update for that date; or
• fill which indicates that the values were from a UN OCHA Flash Update for a prior date

If a subsequent update includes specific information for a date we previously marked as fill that allows us to provide more accurate numbers, we will update previously reported days in the time series where more specific values are available. For the most part, "fill" values will just be the last reported values for the latest report date where flash_source is equal to un.

We aim to update both datasets daily at the same time, and their latest values are now also reflected in a new V3 version of our Summary dataset. You can still access the existing V2 summary dataset and we will continue to update it as before, but we encourage upgrading.

Prior Method​

Our prior list relied heavily on an existing library (arabic-names-to-en) which first tried to translate a name segment using a dictionary mapping, then fell back to a character-by-character lookup. We then had some volunteers do a visual review and incorporated manual changes. For a list of over 14 thousand names, this proved hard to manage.

New Method​

We've since built our own dictionary mapping with more name coverage, and the process now looks like this:

1. we clean arabic names in the original list of formatting issues (using dict_ar_ar.csv)
2. we lookup / translate each name part into english (using dict_ar_en.csv)
3. we run final transformations when converting to JSON (see JSON export script)

The final step includes a fallback step to rely on the old library for remaining arabic translations that are not yet in our curated dict_ar_ar.csv. Currently there are less than 2% of the names partially handled by this fallback mechanism, and we'll be working to reduce that number.

Notable Changes​

We've avoided what we believe would have been breaking changes to the dataset per our versioning guide, but we did add 21 new records from the original official list released in November 2023. The IDs that were introduced from that November list include:

• 401771530
• 401844790
• 405424524
• 407194836
• 411518053
• 425923364
• 436788202
• 437391725
• 438240293
• 438445371
• 441199296
• 800328817
• 802335927
• 803827518
• 804662112
• 804669000
• 901494161
• 930025457
• 932076094
• 942125832
• 95270068

The list before this change can be found on Github:

• unminified
• minified

Here are some additional details about the current list & the latest revision:

• there are 14,140 names
• english name changes between this and the last published list, using Levenshtein distance:
  • 24% of names had no change
  • 60% of names had differences of between 1-4 edits, inclusive
  • 15% of names had differences of between 5-9 edits, inclusive
  • 1.9% of names had differences of 10 or more edits
• 92 records (0.65%) had age changes from the prior release (all 1 year less than before)
• 29 names have "unknown" for part or all of the name, and those are now represented in the english translation as ?

We're continually working to improve translations and the list in general. If you have ideas or want to contribute a change, please see our contributing guide.