UN Slashes Number of Women and Children Killed in Gaza by 50%

(VINnews) — The United Nations has apparently slashed in half the estimated number of women and children killed in Gaza. The UN published the number of fatalities and provided a disclaimer: “The UN has so far not been able to produce independent, comprehensive, and verified casualty figures.”

The report showed more than 14,500 child deaths on May 6 but then changed it to 7,797 on May 8. It also revised its figure for women fatalities from more than 9,500 deaths to 4,959 deaths.

The UN attributed its original, higher figures to the Hamas-controlled Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza. The UN gave no source for the lower figures in its May 8 update, but the figures precisely match those from the Gaza Ministry of Health, also controlled by Hamas. (This begs the question, how can we accept the new numbers as being any more accurate than the old ones?)

According to a report last month, the Health Ministry cannot account for thousands of names of so-called ‘fatalities’.

As reported by JNS: The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health can’t provide names of more than 10,000 of the 34,000 it says have died during the war with Israel, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reports.

“While the Health Ministry conceded earlier this month that it has ‘incomplete data’ for nearly one-third of the deceased, this is the first admission that it lacks an essential data point necessary to establish these deaths have even taken place,” the Washington-based think tank noted on May 2.

On April 24, the ministry released a graphic to mark the 200th day of the war that started when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, repeating its claim that the hostilities had claimed more than 34,000 Gazan lives. However, it added that only 24,000 of the dead are “martyrs whose idintities [sic] are recognized.”

As of April 21, 10,152 of the ministry’s fatality records had incomplete data. “An explanatory note in the April 1 digest says incomplete records lack one or more of five basic data points: ID number, full name, sex, date of birth, or date of death,” FDD reported.

While it was unclear which of those data points was missing, “it is now clear the ministry does not have names for these individuals,” FDD said.

In January, Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a report that showed major discrepancies in the Hamas fatality reports. They concluded such discrepancies were most likely caused by manipulation.

Professor Abraham Wyner also told Tablet Magazine that the rate of deaths was very unnatural and climbed far too regularly.

He claimed that in war, deaths should be irregular as the intensity of war is irregular, but that the death numbers climbed by 270 plus/minus 15%, which he says is statistically impossible.