Scrutiny Continues on Hamas' Gaza Health Ministry Death Toll

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After nearly eight months of war, Gaza’s health system is in dire straits. According to a May 3 report from the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 70% of Gaza’s hospitals are no longer operational. Additionally, the United Nations and the International Rescue Committee report that only 15 out of 36 hospitals are partially functioning, with 65% of primary health care centers completely out of action. Despite this widespread destruction, Hamas-employed health and information officials continue to provide daily updates on the rising death toll and countless injuries. These figures are often quoted by aid agencies, media outlets, and world leaders, including President Biden, without much scrutiny. However, the reliability of these numbers has come under question.

 

A significant debate arose last week when the United Nations admitted that data from both the Hamas-run Ministry of Health and the Government Media Office in Gaza could not be independently verified. While the U.N. suggested that the overall death count was likely accurate, it halved the reported number of women and children killed, raising questions about the reliability of the information provided by Hamas, especially since they themselves mentioned that around 10,000 of those classified as dead were reported by "credible media source" however they refuse to state what media sources they are.

 

Khaled Abu Toameh, a Palestinian affairs analyst based in Jerusalem, said, "It sounds credible when you say the Gaza Ministry of Health reported, but the truth is that most of the ministry employees are Hamas public servants, and they are not even working at the moment; they are on the run." He added, "No one really knows what is happening there. The Hamas government has not been functioning since the second or third week of the war…. They all went underground."

 

Since Israeli troops entered Gaza on October 27, following an attack by Hamas, many affiliated with the terrorist organization have taken up arms, engaging in combat from within civilian population centers. At the beginning of the war, medical officials employed by Hamas monitored the rising death toll via a network of computers connecting morgues and hospitals. This system had been previously validated by human rights groups, the U.N., and the WHO. David Adesnik, a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said, "At the start of the war, the health ministry had a stream of casualty data coming in from hospitals across Gaza. That is why so many Western journalists said the ministry's data was worth citing in their articles and why the U.N. trusted it."

 

🚨 How many civilian casualties have there been in Gaza?

I clarified our assessment of the figures in today's press briefing based on recent statements by Prime Minister @netanyahu pic.twitter.com/AX2T6n7sWN

— Avi Hyman (@AviHyman) May 13, 2024

 

 

However, as Israeli troops advanced, the ministry lost contact with hospitals and began relying on "reliable media sources" to determine fatalities. These sources, which were never identified, became the primary basis for more than 75% of death records in the first three months of the year. Adesnik explained, "Even if you think the ministry was doing a good job at the beginning of the war collecting casualty data from hospitals, its shift to using ‘reliable media sources’ has seriously undermined its credibility."

 

A May 3 WHO report highlighted that only a few of Gaza’s hospitals and primary health care facilities that were operational before October 7 are still functioning. Zaher al Wahaidi, who leads Hamas’ Health Information Centre, told Sky News last month that the morgue monitoring system only captures a fraction of the deaths. "Of the eight major hospitals responsible for collating morgue data, just three are still providing information to the health ministry," Sky News reported.

 

An official from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli military body that coordinates civilian issues in Palestinian territories, stated that the Hamas-run civilian offices were still operating to publish data and put pressure on the international community. "The numbers they publish are not right or accurate," the COGAT official said. Despite these issues, agencies like the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) continue to cite Hamas-published data in their daily reports, albeit with a disclaimer about their inability to independently verify the figures.

 

The unreliability of data from Gaza has significant political implications. When asked whether President Biden had confidence in the casualty numbers from Gaza, National Security communications advisor John Kirby stated, "The President watches this very, very closely. Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, emphasized the importance of protecting civilians but did not comment on whether the State Department or the White House would continue referring to Hamas’ data.

 

Related Topics

UN Cuts Death of Women and Children in Gaza by Half

Hamas admits one-third of its data on Gazan deaths is ‘incomplete’

Scrutiny Over Gaza Death Toll Figures: UK Statistics Watchdog Investigates Hamas's Data

How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers

 

Credit: Yahoo News 2024-05-27

 

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