In the first 18 days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, more than 7,000 Palestinians were killed, including nearly 3,000 children, even as international calls for a ceasefire mounted. Yet rather than confronting the scale of civilian suffering, senior Western officials—particularly in the United States—moved quickly to question the credibility of Palestinian casualty figures.
Those early efforts to discredit the death toll would shape Western political and media narratives for more than two years, even as evidence mounted that the figures were accurate and, if anything, undercounted.
Biden’s Early Doubts and Political Pushback
In October 2023, then-US President Joe Biden publicly cast doubt on the Palestinian death toll
provided by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, undermining calls to halt Israel’s assault.
“What they say to me is I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,”
Biden said at the time.
“I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.”
“But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,”
he added.
Rights advocates argue that such statements from Washington’s highest office legitimized Israeli efforts to deny or minimize the scale of civilian deaths and helped stall international pressure for a ceasefire.
Israeli Acknowledgement Confirms Palestinian Data
More than two years later, as the Palestinian death toll increased nearly tenfold, the Israeli military itself acknowledged that approximately 70,000 Palestinians had been killed, aligning closely with figures long reported by Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Several Israeli media outlets quoted senior military officials last week as accepting that the death toll was roughly accurate. The Israeli government later attempted to walk back those reports, saying the
“details published do not reflect official [military] data.”
As of Sunday, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 71,769 deaths since October 7, 2023, including 506 people killed after a US-brokered “ceasefire” took effect in October last year.
Humanitarian and UN Agencies Back Health Ministry Figures
Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials have repeatedly affirmed that the Health Ministry’s casualty data is reliable and consistent with independent assessments.
Experts note that the reported figures may still underestimate the true scale of death. Thousands of Palestinians remain missing under rubble, while others have died from untreated injuries, disease, starvation, or the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system under siege.
A 2024 study published in The Lancet estimated that Gaza’s death toll was undercounted by at least 41 percent, suggesting that the real number of fatalities could be significantly higher than official tallies.
Western Efforts to Undermine Palestinian Testimony
Despite mounting evidence, Israel’s supporters in the US and Europe continued to portray Palestinians as unreliable narrators of their own suffering.
In 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill prohibiting the Department of State from citing death statistics issued by Gaza’s Health Ministry—an extraordinary legislative move that critics say politicized humanitarian data.
Pro-Israel politicians, commentators, and advocacy groups spent more than two years insisting that Palestinian casualty figures could not be trusted, even as those same figures were relied upon by the UN and international aid agencies.
‘Gaslighting’ the Global Audience
Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said Western governments—particularly the Biden administration—actively worked to discredit Palestinian data and “gaslight” the international community.
“This government played a role in that, and the Biden administration played a role in that,”
Ayoub told Al Jazeera.
“They laid the groundwork for the Israeli officials to do the same thing. But ultimately, you cannot keep lying about what the world has been watching and witnessing with our own eyes.”
The ‘Hamas-Run’ Label and Media Framing
Throughout the war, many Western media outlets—including the BBC, AFP, CNN, and Fox News—routinely described Gaza’s Health Ministry as “Hamas-run” or “Hamas-controlled” whenever citing casualty figures.
Critics argue that the repeated use of the label was not merely descriptive but editorial, serving to cast doubt on Palestinian deaths and subtly delegitimize the victims themselves.
CNN at times added disclaimers stating it could not independently verify the figures, while The New York Times also referred to the ministry as “Hamas-controlled.”
While the Health Ministry operates within Gaza’s governing structure, which has been administered by Hamas, it is staffed by medical professionals and public health officials. There is no evidence that Hamas manipulates the ministry’s casualty reporting—a conclusion shared by UN agencies that have relied on its data for years.
Media Contradictions Persist
Even after Israeli military officials acknowledged the accuracy of the Palestinian figures, skepticism persisted in Western coverage.
On Friday, the BBC ran a headline stating:
“Israeli media cite official accepting Hamas figure of 70,000 war dead,”
continuing to frame the data as suspect despite Israeli confirmation.
A BBC spokesperson told Al Jazeera that the network remains
“fully committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza conflict impartially and accurately,”
adding that it has been transparent about its sourcing.
Erosion of Trust in Mainstream Media
Ayoub said the willingness of major outlets to repeat Israeli talking points while questioning Palestinian testimony has fueled a deep loss of trust in mainstream Western media.
“It’s another reason and another example of why there’s been a complete loss of trust and faith in any mainstream media,”
he said.
“This genocide has really given room, more so than any event in recent history, to third-party and independent media outlets.”
Calls to Center Palestinian Voices
Hatem Abudayyeh, chair of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), said Western journalists must confront official narratives and report Palestinian realities without qualification.
“It’s time for US and other Western press to do their jobs,”
Abudayyeh told Al Jazeera,
“to challenge the US and Israeli Zionist narrative, and to print the truth about the genocide, the continued violations of the ‘ceasefire’, and all of Israel’s and the US’s crimes against humanity.”