One official noted that the Palestinian health ministry’s death counts may even be an undercount.
President Joe Biden cast doubt this week on the Palestinian health ministry’s death count in Israel’s current genocidal campaign against Palestinians — but Biden’s own administration officials rely on those same death counts for their reports, and have even said in one instance that the ministry’s count may be too low.
According to a review by HuffPost of nearly 20 “situation reports” from the State Department, which represent the U.S.’s assessments on the ground and are intended to inform policy decisions, officials have often cited casualties reported by the health ministry in Gaza. In these reports, which date back to October 8, the day after Hamas’s initial attack on Israel, the ministry’s counts are cited at least 12 times, the analysis found.
In one instance, in an October 21 report, an official said that the Gaza ministry’s numbers may actually be an undercount of the death toll. “The numbers are likely much higher, according to the UN and NGOs reporting on the situation,” the official reportedly wrote.
The ministry’s death counts were also included in a report provided on October 25, just hours before Biden would say that he has “no confidence” in those same death counts in a press conference on the White House lawn.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” Biden said. “I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
Biden’s remark sparked outrage from advocates and experts, who have said that the health ministry’s death counts have historically been reliable and are cited by many international organizations, including the UN. The State Department has also cited these figures prior to this month’s violence.
“Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, told The Washington Post. “In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I’m not aware of any time which there’s been some major discrepancy.”
Advocates add that questioning the death tolls — especially in such a public manner — only furthers Zionist propaganda and serves to justify and perpetuate the genocide. “Questioning death tolls directly dehumanizes Palestinians. It’s a key part of genocide denial. Israel is murdering Palestinians. By minimizing this, the U.S. is laying the groundwork for more death,” Jewish anti-Zionist group IfNotNow wrote on social media. “Internally, Biden administration officials regularly cite the Gaza Ministry of Health. Yet Biden and White House spokespeople are publicly questioning these figures in an attempt to remove their own responsibility for funding death and destruction.”
After Biden’s comments on Wednesday, the Gazan health ministry released a list of the names of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel’s genocidal siege in the past three weeks. According to the health ministry, the Israeli military has killed at least 7,326 Palestinians since it began its current bombing campaign in Gaza. Since Israel declared war on Palestinians on October 7, Israeli settlers and the Israeli military have killed at least 90 Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israel has more than doubled the number of Palestinians in the West Bank being held in Israeli jails, with 10,000 Palestinian prisoners being held. The death toll will likely rise as Israeli forces prepare for a ground invasion into Gaza in the coming days.
link: https://truthout.org/articles/bidens-own-officials-cite-the-palestinian-death-counts-he-cast-doubt-on/
archive link: https://archive.ph/TvwrO
Backtracking from the harebrained claim that the missile came from Hamas, you mean? Or that a piece of shrapnel could level a hospital?
Hamas has little reason to do shit like this and the IDF is observably targeting ambulances and other blatantly civilian entities (like bakeries, for some reason). What do you think is the simplest way to explain it?
They were backtracking from the claim that Israel has done it. Now, there doesn't seem to be a conclusion because of the lack of independent investigation which is sorely desired.
The easiest explanation is that it was Hamas or some other allied group given that we know that Hamas has attacked. Israel has international partners and has the issues of Muslim neighborhood wanting them gone. Israel can't afford to be international pariah.
This is delusional. We already know they have a longstanding habit of picking off ambulances and other civilian targets. They have already cut off food, water, medicine, and so on to Gaza. They are already doing heinous shit like they have been doing for their whole miserable existence.
Spelling errors make it really hard to follow you because your ideology is so incoherent that it's difficult to make a guess that sounds plausible. Is it "we know what Hamas has attacked" as though they a) had any higher proclivity than Israel to attack civilian infrastructure and b) that would mean that any civilian target is more likely to be struck by them, even when they are mainly hitting Palestinians? That would be deranged, but given the other thing you said, I'm forced to assume it.
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The point of attacking the festival wasn't that the a priori concept of civilian blood gives them a hard-on, it was an attack on the Israeli population. Why the fuck would they be attacking Palestinian civilians? Them not meeting your liberal sensibilities does not mean they are irrational sadists seeking to gun down anything with a pulse.
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Apparently it can by simply insisting "No, it wasn't us. They attacked their own citizens!" Like you're doing.
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That's some "Bush did 9/11" ass reasoning
Nations do have the rights to self-defense. So, it's not exactly wrong to attack back.
9/11 is a little different in that there were earlier assaults and warnings. So, I think USA is correct to try to resolve it, but execution of it can be questioned.
Much like how nazi Germany had the right to defend itself from Poland's reckless attack on the Fatherland by carving massacre after massacre on the Polish people, Israel too has the right to defend itself from Palestine.
What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with what I said.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000
This isn't related to the war, but it's one of those things that needs to be looked at.
Always a state of epistemic suspense with Israel