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Short answer
Since the attack of Oct 7 and the retaliation Israel conducted in order to defeat the Hamas terrorists & retrieve its kidnapped hostages, The Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry has purposefully inflated civilian death toll, while blaming Israel for those high numbers. The collateral damage, stemming from the defensive war conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces, has been grossly misrepresented in order to vilify Israel.
A study published by the Henry Jackson Society revealed that the Gaza Health Ministry purposefully overestimated the death count and fed this false information to numerous media outlets and influencers. According to the study, 84% of the broadcasts failed to distinguish between terrorist fighters and civilian deaths and 98% cited figures that also included natural deaths and failed to distinguish between civilians and terrorist fighters.
Long answer
Ever since the beginning of the war in Gaza, ignited by Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, its Hamas-run health ministry has been inflating civilian death toll in order to vilify Israel and portray it as a genocidal aggressor.
An extensive study by Andrew Fox titled “ QUESTIONABLE COUNTING: ANALYSING THE DEATH TOLL FROM THE HAMAS-RUN MINISTRY OF HEALTH IN GAZA” and published by the Henry Jackson Society suggests that the ministry purposefully overestimated deaths by including natural deaths in its calculations and purposely failed to distinguish between civilians and terrorist fighters.
While the ministry claims over 44,000 people died, Israeli and American intelligence estimate the number of Hamas fighters killed at around 17,000. Collateral damage is inevitable in wars and Hamas is well known to use its population as human shields and murder Gazans who do not comply with their orders.
Israel follows international law and does not target innocent populations. To the contrary ,the Israeli Defense Forces are known for dropping leaflets and making calls to warn innocent Gazans civilians of upcoming strikes.
Major news outlets have frequently cited the Hamas Run MoH figures without adequate scrutiny, often presenting them as undisputed facts. For example, The Observer’s April 2024 headline “Gaza death toll passes 34,000 as Israel and Iran missile strikes grab global attention” relied on these figures. Similarly, the BBC’s August 2024 coverage extensively cited the Ministry of Health’s claim of 44,000 deaths.The study conducted research of 1,378 articles from major English-language news outlets between February and May 2024. They found that 84% of these publications failed to distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths, while 98% cited the Hamas MoH figures. Moreover, 19% of reports used MoH numbers without citing a source, suggesting their uncontested nature. Fewer than 2% of articles mentioned the unreliability or controversy surrounding these figures, while Israeli statistics were questioned in half of the articles that included them.
The data has been found to contain errors, such as misclassifying ages and genders. It likely includes natural deaths, pre-war deaths, and deaths from Hamas’s own actions. The ministry’s methodology has been questioned, and its past reports have also been demonstrated to hide combatant deaths. Therefore, these numbers cannot be trusted.
