The Palestinian death toll is very high, is the data accurate?

Since the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, the Gaza Ministry of Health has been actively reporting the number of Palestinian casualties, with the figure potentially increasing by 300-600 people per day.

Its latest report indicates that Palestinian fatalities in the Gaza Strip have exceeded 11,000. However, how accurate is this data?

The accuracy of the casualty figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health has been questioned by U.S. President Joe Biden.

"I don't think the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people have been killed," Joe Biden said, as reported by Reuters on Thursday, October 26, 2023.

Biden expressed these doubts on the 20th day of the Israeli-Hamas war, when the Gaza Ministry of Health reported that Palestinian casualties had surpassed 7,000.

The veracity of the Gaza Ministry of Health's reports is indeed questionable. This is because, in this large-scale Israeli-Hamas war, there is no third party that can verify the number of casualties.

However, historically, the Gaza Ministry of Health's reports have generally been consistent with findings from the independent United Nations (UN) bodies.

According to data compiled by Associated Press (AP) News, when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted in 2008, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported 1,440 Palestinian deaths.

At the same time, based on independent research and medical record tracking, the UN reported 1,385 Palestinian deaths.

A similar pattern occurred when conflicts erupted again in 2014 and 2021. The reported number of deaths from the Gaza Ministry of Health differed only slightly from the UN's findings, as shown in the graph.

"The numbers may not be entirely accurate. But the numbers largely reflect the level of death and injury," said Michael Ryan, a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) interviewed by AP News on Tuesday, November 7, 2023.

"The UN, as well as other international organizations and experts, and even the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank, who are rivals of Hamas, have long stated that the Gaza Ministry has been trying to count casualties in good faith, under the most difficult conditions," stated the AP News editorial team.

In the last week, specifically since November 10, 2023, the Gaza Ministry of Health has not updated its casualty figures.

According to the UN, reporting has stopped because many hospitals in Gaza have collapsed due to Israeli attacks. Hospitals are, however, the primary means of treating and recording casualties.