After more than two years of denying the number of Palestinians it is killing during its campaign in Gaza, the Israeli military decided the death toll estimate kept by the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip was an accurate count of those killed in the besieged territory.
The military, which routinely dismissed health ministry figures as Hamas propaganda, is analyzing the data to distinguish how many are combatants and how many are civilians, according to Haaretz. The report confirms past stories from the Israeli website Local Call as well as Vice.
The ministry is part of a Hamas-controlled government in Gaza, but human rights advocates, a prestigious medical journal, and the United Nations have said for years that its tallies of the dead have been found to be accurate. The ministry also periodically releases names and other identifying information about those killed in Gaza.
The doubts sewn over the loss of Palestinian life laid the groundwork for shielding Israel from accountability.
Despite human rights advocates’ reliance on the figures, the White House, members of Congress, pro-Israel pundits, and legacy media institutions have all cast doubt on the running death toll kept by the Palestinian health ministry.
The doubts sewn over the loss of Palestinian life laid the groundwork for persistent genocide denial that has helped to shield Israel from accountability.
“The Biden administration, Congress, and the U.S. media played along with Israel’s lies and deception about the horrific death toll in Gaza — over 80 percent civilians; over half, women and children — so that they could gaslight Americans into continued support for Israel,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of human rights group DAWN. She said that, along with other debunked Israeli claims about the war, the denials of the death toll helped “ensure Israel can continue its crimes and the U.S. can continue to arm it.”
Hani Almadhoun, co-founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, whose brother Mahmoud was killed by an Israeli drone in November 2024, said it was difficult to defend against officials and media outlets dismissing the death tolls as “Hamas numbers.”
“To every government spokesperson, every news anchor, and every celebrity who repeated that denial — I hope you never know what it feels like to lose your family and then be told your loss is ‘disputed,’” Almadhoun told The Intercept.
With media and NGO workers barred by Israel from entering the Strip, the Palestinian health ministry’s count has been the only reliable source of the death toll during the genocide.
The latest health ministry figure estimates at least 71,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, a number that is still growing while Israel continues to strike the besieged territory at a near-daily rate in violation of the so-called ceasefire.
Here is a brief accounting of the people and institutions who have denied the Palestinian death tolls in Gaza throughout Israel’s genocide.