https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Intifada
>High numbers of casualties were caused among civilians as well as combatants.
Now there's a sentence that, you can tell, has had its wording viciously fought over in a Talk page, resulting in the garbled passive-voice abomination left standing.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties "An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished"
Without taking sides I can see how difficult it can be to find wording that various interests can tolerate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa_Intifada says it lasted "4 years, 4 months, 1 week and 4 days"
It also has the Wikipedia standard conflict "Casualties and losses" tally.
> How would you have it phrased?
Without commenting on this particular event, the passive voice typically doesn't identify the actor and can thus be used to omit or obscure responsibility.
Consider the classic 'mistakes were made' vs. active alternatives such as 'we made mistakes' or 'they made mistakes'.