According to the UN’s data published on May 6, out of the total 34,735 casualties in Gaza since the start of the war, over 9,500 were women and more than 14,500 were children.
The Ministry has documented the full details of the fatalities, revealing that they consist of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly individuals, and 10,006 men, according to Kaneko. It is important to note that the Ministry of Health is currently in the process of documenting the complete identification details of the casualties.
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According to the latest update from the UN, the number of casualties in Gaza does not account for the over 10,000 individuals who are classified as “missing or under the rubble” by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
In a recent update on its Telegram channel, the Gazan Health Ministry reported that it had encountered incomplete data for 11,371 documented fatalities. According to the ministry, a record is considered incomplete if it lacks an individual’s identity number, full name, date of birth, or date of death.
According to Kaneko, the UN teams in Gaza have faced challenges in confirming the numbers due to the ongoing situation and the high number of casualties.
“The Ministry of Health in Gaza is consistently cited as the source for all figures used by the UN,” she explained. “Whenever conditions allow, the UN will diligently verify these figures to the best of its ability.”
The Jerusalem Post was the first to report the revised estimates.
In a surprising turn of events, President Joe Biden, who had initially expressed skepticism about the accuracy of figures provided by Hamas, has started to rely on death statistics from the Gaza Ministry of Health. This change in approach was evident when he cited these figures during his March State of the Union address to Congress. It is a notable shift in the President’s stance, showing a growing acceptance of the data provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Israeli officials have consistently challenged the casualty numbers provided by Hamas, particularly regarding the proportion of women and children who lost their lives during the conflict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has asserted that over 13,000 Hamas “terrorists” were among the Palestinians who died in Gaza since the commencement of the war on October 7th.
In a recent blog post, Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the think-tank Council on Foreign Relations, challenges the perception that the majority of casualties and fatalities in conflicts involving Hamas have been women and children. Until recently, Hamas has successfully propagated this narrative, garnering widespread acceptance. However, Abrams questions the validity of this argument.
According to Elliott Abrams, the former deputy national security adviser for President George W. Bush, there is now recognition within the United Nations that it unknowingly accepted Hamas’ misleading numbers.
The latest data from the United Nations reveals that men account for 40% of the casualties in Gaza, followed by children at 32%, women at 20%, and the elderly at 8%.
