WASHINGTON — The United Nations has cut by almost half estimates of the number of women and children killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, prompting a new review of figures from the militant group Hamas.
Of the 34,735 people who have died in Gaza since the start of the war, according to data released on May 6 by the UN, more than 9,500 were women and more than 14,500 children.
But in updated data released two days later, on May 8, the UN drastically reduced those figures to 4,959 women and 7,797 children among the 34,844 people reported killed in Gaza.
The UN cites data from Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry to produce casualty figures. The UN reports come with a disclaimer that says: “So far, the UN has been unable to produce independent, comprehensive and verified casualty figures. »
In a statement to USA TODAY, UN spokesperson Eri Kaneko highlighted an April 30 update from the Gaza Ministry of Health on the breakdown of the 24,686 deaths for which the ministry has full details .
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“According to the ministry, deaths for which full details have been documented include 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly people and 10,006 men,” Kaneko said. “The Ministry of Health notes that the process of documenting the full identification details of the victims is ongoing”
Hamas said it lacked details on more than 11,000 casualties.
Last month, Gaza’s Health Ministry said via its Telegram channel that it had incomplete data on 11,371 deaths it claimed to have documented. A file is considered incomplete if the identity number, full name, date of birth or date of death is missing, the ministry said in the report.
Kaneko said U.N. teams in Gaza have not been able to independently verify these figures due to “the prevailing situation on the ground and the large number of deaths.”
“For this reason, all figures used by the UN clearly cite the Gaza Ministry of Health as the source,” she said. “The UN will verify these figures wherever possible when conditions permit.”
The revised estimates were first reported by the Jerusalem Post.
After expressing initial skepticism last year about the accuracy of figures provided by Hamas, President Joe Biden in recent months began citing death figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, including during his speech on the State of the Union to Congress in March.
Israeli officials have long disputed death figures reported by Hamas, particularly the share of women and children killed during the war.
“Hamas wants the world to believe that the main victims and casualties are women and children, an argument almost universally accepted until very recently,” wrote Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow in Middle East studies at the Hamas group. reflection Council on Foreign Relations. in a blog post.
“Now even the U.N., or part of the U.N., is silently acknowledging that it blindly accepted Hamas numbers intended to mislead,” said Abrams, former deputy national security adviser to President George W. .Bush.
According to the latest UN figures, 40% of victims in Gaza are men, 32% children, 20% women and 8% elderly people.
News Source : www.usatoday.com
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