Biden Challenges Gaza's Death Statistics Despite U.S. Internal Citations

HuffPost reviewed nearly 20 State Department “situation reports”, with the earliest dating from October 8, the day after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a devastating attack inside Israel that killed 1,400 people and sparked the current fighting. Most were prepared by the US Embassy in Jerusalem and then circulated to a broad group of department officials working on issues related to Israel-Palestine. Situation reports such as these represent US assessments from the ground that are intended to inform policy discussions and decision-making in Washington.

In at least 12 instances, US embassy officials attributed the number of Palestinian casualties to the Hamas-linked Health Ministry in Gaza — including in the report provided to State Department colleagues on October 25, hours before Biden’s remarks.

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It’s unclear whether Biden received specific information that motivated his Wednesday comments. Asked about the ministry’s assessment that Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7 had killed more than 6,000 Palestinians, including 2,700 children, the president said: “I’m sure innocents have been killed and that’s the price of waging a war. I think we should be incredibly careful — not we, the Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they’re focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel and it’s against their interests when that doesn’t happen.”

“But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,” Biden said.

On Thursday, a State Department spokesperson told HuffPost: “No one is questioning the scope of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or the significant number of civilian lives that have been lost.”

The Gaza Health Ministry responded to Biden’s statement on Thursday by publishing a list of names of people killed since October 7.

The State Department cables vary in how they describe the Gaza ministry’s relationship with Hamas — a point of contention that has become especially important amid an ongoing controversy over a hospital bombing in Gaza last week. Soon after the explosion, multiple major news outlets cited the ministry saying it was caused by an Israeli airstrike and had caused nearly 500 deaths. Israel in turn blamed the blast on a misfired rocket by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. US intelligence agencies later reported the toll was between 100 and 300 and the BBC and New York Times published clarifying statements about their coverage; Israel’s government had accused the BBC of issuing a “modern blood libel”.

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One cable, sent on October 12, cites “the de facto Deputy Health Minister in Gaza,” Yousef Abu Al-Reesh.

On October 23, a cable did not provide a new casualty number for Gazans, noting the ministry had not published new figures since the previous day.

The chief UN aid agency operating in the strip said Thursday that the lack of fuel in the area — which can only receive supplies through Israel and Egypt — is making it harder to help people amid the fighting. “Current stocks are almost completely exhausted, forcing life-saving services to come to a halt,” the UN Relief and Works Agency wrote in its latest update. “This includes the supply of piped water as well as fuel for the health sector, bakeries, and generators.”

The death toll in the strip now exceeds 7,000, the Gaza Health Ministry reported on Thursday.

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