More than 11,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, according to Israeli officials and the Hamas-influenced health ministry.
But how accurate are these numbers? Here you will find everything you need to know.
Deaths in the Gaza Strip
Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. More than 4,000 of the dead were children, according to the ministry. About 2,450 more people are missing.
But US President Joe Biden said last month that he had “no confidence” in Gaza’s health ministry figures.
The White House spokeswoman also said the department was a “front for Hamas,” although she did not deny that many innocent Palestinians were killed during the war.
Shortly after Mr. Biden’s comments, Gaza’s health ministry released a list on Oct. 26 containing the names and identification numbers of 6,747 Gazans it said had been killed so far in the war, making no distinction between civilians and combatants.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said on Tuesday that the intergovernmental body’s death toll in the region historically matches that of Gaza’s health ministry.
“Our numbers were only a few percent of that amount and were almost identical. We don’t have this concern because of the past,” he said.
According to the Associated Press, health ministry employees represent various factions in the Gaza Strip and Hamas does not pay their salaries.
At least 39 journalists have also been killed in the conflict since November 9, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Among the dead, 34 were Palestinians, four Israelis and one Lebanese, according to CPJ.
Violence also continues in the occupied West Bank, where more than 171 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids and settler attacks since October 7.
Before the escalation of violence in October, the conflict between Palestine and Israel had killed 6,541 Palestinians since 2008, according to the United Nations.
Deaths in Israel
Israeli officials say more than 1,400 Israelis were killed. Hamas is also holding 242 people hostage in the Gaza Strip, including Israelis and foreigners. Both series of figures include both civilians and military personnel.
This figure includes 33 IDF soldiers killed in Israeli ground offensives in the Gaza Strip since November 8.
According to the UN, 309 Israelis were killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 2008 until the Hamas attacks on October 7.
Source: I News
I am Michael Melvin, an experienced news writer with a passion for uncovering stories and bringing them to the public. I have been working in the news industry for over five years now, and my work has been published on multiple websites. As an author at 24 News Reporters, I cover world section of current events stories that are both informative and captivating to read.