Wildfires result in human fatalities not only due to the direct exposure to flames, but also indirectly through smoke inhalation. The Mediterranean basin with its hot and dry summers is a hotspot for such devastating events. The situation has further been aggravated in recent years by climate change as well as a growing and aging population in the region. To assess the health impacts due to short-term exposure to air pollution created by the 2021 summer wildfires in the eastern and central Mediterranean basin, we used a regional-scale chemistry transport model to simulate concentrations of major air pollutants such as fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.5 μm (PM_2.5), SO₂, NO₂, and O₃ - in a fire and a no-fire scenario. Elevated short-term exposure of the population to air pollutants are associated with excess all-cause mortality using relative risks for individual pollutants from previously published meta-analyses. Our estimates indicate that the short-term exposure to wildfire-caused changes in O₃ accounted for 741 (95% CI:556-940) excess deaths in total over the entire region of investigation during the wildfire season between mid-July to early October 2021. This is followed by 270 (95% CI:177-370) excess deaths due to elevated PM_2.5 exposure, rendering the health effect of increased O₃ from wildfires larger than the effect of increased PM_2.5. We show this to be attributed largely to the spatially more widespread impact of wildfires on O₃. Our study concludes with a discussion on uncertainties associated with the health impact assessment based on different air pollutants.