The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated on May 6 that over 9,500 women and 14,500 children had been killed in Gaza.
Two days later, OCHA officially listed under 5,000 women and 8,000 children as casualties.
The Hamas-run Government Media Office has previously served as the source for the UN’s casualty figures, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Some commenters don’t understand why this is significant. They think it only has to do with who has been positively identified (which is important ongoing work).
Rather, it is cause to revise our understanding of the “indiscriminate killing” narrative. Since Hamas does not incorporate women in their primary fighting forces, the high proportion of men is a strong indication that Israel has been much more precise in targeting militants than previously reported.
War is always a tragedy and I hope that Hamas and Israel can come to an agreement that releases the hostages and ends this conflict so no more civilians have to die.
Really precise, it's just 8,0000, give or take, children and some women. That's nothing, IDF deserves a medal. /s
Also nice how you consider all dead men as terrorists, true Israel spirit.
You’re misunderstanding. Civilian casualties are a tragic reality of war, even moreso during embedded urban warfare, and even more when an enemy has had time to dig in (about 20 years in this case). Hamas combat units do not include women (although they do use child soldiers). This indicates that far more Hamas fighters were killed than previously reported.
The number only went down because the bodies weren’t identified, the number is still 35,000+ and didn’t go down. Even if that number was cut in half it would be completely unacceptable.
The clarification comes after the UN humanitarian agency OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) published a report on May 8 with revised data regarding the number of Palestinian casualties in the war. The UN agency in its report reduced the number of women and children believed to have been killed in the war by nearly half.
The number was reduced because the UN says it is now relying on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying details have been fully documented, rather than the total number of women and children killed. The ministry says bodies that arrive at hospitals get counted in the overall death count.
UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing at the UN that the health ministry in Gaza recently published two separate death tolls – an overall death toll and a total number of identified fatalities. In the UN report, only the total number of fatalities whose identities (such as name and date of birth) have been documented was published, leading to confusion.
According to Haq, the ministry published a breakdown for 24,686 fully identified deaths out of the total 34,622 fatalities recorded in Gaza as of April 30. The fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men, the UN spokesperson said, citing the Gaza health ministry.
The health authority in Gaza noted that the documentation process of casualties’ full identification details is still ongoing, Haq added.
Two officials from the Palestinian Ministry of Health have told CNN that although the ministry keeps a separate death toll for identified and unidentified individuals, the total number of people killed remains unchanged.
The total number of dead also does not include the approximately 10,000 people who are still missing and trapped under the rubble, the officials added.
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