The 40,000 killed statistic is reliable in that the killed persons name, identity number etc are reported to MoH officials and recorded by them, and the dead are seen by the officials. However the figure is a small subset of the actual number dead. 200,000 to 300,000 dead in Gaza in the past year is a conservative estimate.
Your field of study is not directly relevant here (unless you work to figure out the death toll, maybe). However scholars that do study genocide do now seem to agree that the killing of Palestinians by Israel is a genocide.