LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Even if the fighting in Gaza stopped now, about 8,000 more people could still die there over the next six months due to the public health crisis caused by the Israel-Hamas war, according to a report by independent researchers in the U.S. and Britain.

Hospitals in Gaza have been devastated by the fighting and more than 85% of its 2.3 million inhabitants have been left homeless, with rising cases of diseases like diarrhoea as well as malnutrition in overcrowded shelters.

The figures come from a report by academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health in the United States, and are part of wider projections of the excess deaths the conflict may cause in Gaza over the next six months. The report, published on Monday, says it does not include Israel because its public health system is intact.

If the fighting continues or escalates, traumatic injuries will make up the majority of excess deaths in Gaza, the researchers project. But deaths from malnutrition, infectious diseases like cholera and a lack of access to care for conditions like diabetes will also kill thousands.