Death toll in Gaza: UN says the death toll has not changed after the controversy

CNN
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The United Nations explained this on Monday Total number of deaths in Gaza Statistics from the Ministry of Health in Gaza remain unchanged, at more than 35,000, since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7.

This clarification comes after the United Nations Agency for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published a report on May 8 that included revised data on the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. In its report, the United Nations agency reduced the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war by almost half.

The number was reduced because the UN says it now relies on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details were fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The Ministry says that the bodies that arrive at hospitals are counted among the total number of deaths.

UN spokesman Farhan Haq said at a daily press conference at the UN that the Gaza Ministry of Health recently published two separate death tolls – the total death toll and the total number of deaths identified. In the UN report, only the total number of dead whose identities were documented (such as name and date of birth) was published, leading to confusion.

According to Haqq, the ministry published an analysis of 24,686 fully identified deaths out of a total of 34,622 deaths recorded in Gaza as of April 30. The fully determined death toll includes 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly people and 10,006 men, according to the United Nations. A spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

Haq added that the Gaza Health Authority indicated that the process of documenting the full details of the victims is still ongoing.

Two officials from the Palestinian Ministry of Health told CNN that although the ministry keeps a separate death toll for identified and unknown individuals, the total number of people killed has not changed.

Officials added that the total death toll also does not include the nearly 10,000 people still missing and trapped under the rubble.

Israel launched its military attack on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas, which rules Gaza, killed at least 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped more than 250 others. Israel’s months-long blockade of the Palestinian Strip has devastated large parts of Gaza and dramatically reduced vital supplies, putting the entire population of more than 2.2 million people at risk. From famine.

CNN viewed a daily report issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health that matches the number published by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the revised version. The Gaza Ministry of Health said in its latest report that 15,103 children and 9,961 women had been killed in Gaza since October 7.

Officials from the United Nations and the United States had previously assessed the figures issued by the Ministry of Health in Gaza as credible.

CNN cannot independently verify the ministry’s numbers. The Ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians among the victims.