The health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza on Thursday published a 212-page report listing thousands of names described as “documented deaths since October 7” in the enclave, which it blamed on Israeli military “aggression.”
The list, which does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but which does list age and gender, followed US President Joe Biden’s comments that he had “no confidence” in the figures of civilian casualties reported by the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel, along with the US, has expressed doubts about the casualty numbers being reported out of Gaza, but has not provided evidence that they are exaggerated.
White House spokesperson John Kirby called the Gaza-based ministry “a front for Hamas,” though when asked he did not dispute that thousands of Palestinians, many innocent civilians, had been killed.
The prime minister of the US-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said the PA’s own health authority considers the numbers to be “correct.”
“They are our numbers,” Shtayyeh said in an interview Thursday with Al Jazeera. “These numbers are fed to us from the hospitals of Gaza every single day (and) are received by our Ministry of Health.”
Some context: The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority is run by a rival faction to Hamas, and operates the umbrella Ministry of Health, which maintains a relationship with the ministry in Gaza. Death tolls for Gaza are released both in Gaza and Ramallah daily.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 6,850 people in Gaza, including thousands of children, since October 7, according to figures released Thursday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
CNN is not able to independently verify the death toll tabulated in Gaza.
More than 2 million people trapped in Gaza are living through a deepening humanitarian crisis, hastened by daily airstrikes and an Israeli blockade of life-saving fuel, following Hamas’ brutal terror attacks and kidnapping rampage that killed over 1,400 people in Israel and saw over 200 people taken to Gaza as hostages.
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