> The UN numbers come from Hamas, there is no independent verification of those numbers and Hamas is a side to the conflict.
There are no other numbers for Palestinian casulaties. The Israeli state and military have continuously and vehemently refused to provide any numbers of their own (recently in a very embarrassing way on Piers Morgan's show, of all people). In contrast, the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers are considered very high quality by the UN and by all humanitarian organizations working in the region, and have been consistently confirmed for years. Sure, the ministry of health is run by Hamas, but that is only because they are the official ruling party in Gaza. Its not like trusting numbers reported by Al Quaida or ISIS.
Not to mention, those numbers represent a significant undercount of casulaties, since they only count confirmed deaths of people whom the health ministry could specifically identify. People lost in the rubble, small communities that were killed or starved and were not reported, etc are all not counted in these numbers. You can go and check the name and address of each and every one of those 7,797 children, and confirm that they are indeed dead.
Edit: If the IDF or Israel want to refute those numbers, it is extremely easy to do so: they can provide their own numbers, their own methodology, and allow independent experts to study them, like the ministry of health has. "Mysteriously", they have entirely failed to do so, just like they have failed to price that the hospitals they were bombing were Hamas control centers, and many other bogus claims they are making.
I would disagree with you. Those numbers are exactly like numbers that would come from ISIS or Al Qaeda. Hamas uses violence including torture and summary executions to force compliance in Gaza. Nobody in Gaza will work against Hamas or disobey an order from Hamas. There is no "independent health department" as some would like to portray. No such thing. The same methods are used towards UN or humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the people employed by those organizations are mostly Gazans.
Even according to Hamas officials many of the the casualties are based on "self reporting" and/or so called "media reports". Even they do not claim that the count is as accurate as you claim.
Nobody can check the "names and addresses" of those Hamas declared to be dead. For one thing there has been huge movement of people and even Hamas doesn't know who is where, for another there's no way for anyone to independently check on this.
The IDF released plenty of evidence of fighting Hamas in hospitals by the way. It also released interrogation videos where Hamas operatives describe their use of hospitals. Probably not in the news you choose to consume.
I think the IDF simply does not know. I think Netanyahu said something like 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians is the estimate.
The numbers were as accurate as I stated for the beginning of the war. It's true that as Israel kept destroying all of Gaza's civilian infrastructure (hospitals, power, government offices, everything), they have started relying on less reliable sources, which they fully discuss, and clearly estimate how many numbers are directly known and how many are more complex estimates. I was a little vague perhaps in not going into all of these details. The fact remains that all international organizations view these numbers as highly reliable, including the UN, WHO, Human Rights Watch, and many parts of the US government (despite Biden publically claiming these numbers are not refutable).
And in fact Netanyahu has all but confirmed these numbers himself. The "about 30,000" number, with no other details about provenance, accuracy, methodology, etc, is basically an excellent confirmation of the Hamas numbers.
> The IDF released plenty of evidence of fighting Hamas in hospitals by the way. It also released interrogation videos where Hamas operatives describe their use of hospitals. Probably not in the news you choose to consume.
They staged a few photo shoots of weapons they "found in the hospital", and showed some tunnels under one of the hospitals that Ehud Barak himself confirmed live in an interview with Christiane Amanpoor were actually built by Israel back when it controlled Gaza. So, no, they have not actually presented any evidence whatsoever, anymore than Avengers was evidence of an alien invasion in NYC. No journalists were ever allowed to investigate this evidence on their own, nor have any other kind of investigators.
> I think the IDF simply does not know. I think Netanyahu said something like 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians is the estimate.
Than it should shut up immediately about (1) the "Hamas" numbers that they just confirmed being "inaccurate", and (2) any pretense that they care about not slaughtering civilians, if they don't even know how many they are murdering.
There are no other numbers for Palestinian casulaties. The Israeli state and military have continuously and vehemently refused to provide any numbers of their own (recently in a very embarrassing way on Piers Morgan's show, of all people). In contrast, the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers are considered very high quality by the UN and by all humanitarian organizations working in the region, and have been consistently confirmed for years. Sure, the ministry of health is run by Hamas, but that is only because they are the official ruling party in Gaza. Its not like trusting numbers reported by Al Quaida or ISIS.
Not to mention, those numbers represent a significant undercount of casulaties, since they only count confirmed deaths of people whom the health ministry could specifically identify. People lost in the rubble, small communities that were killed or starved and were not reported, etc are all not counted in these numbers. You can go and check the name and address of each and every one of those 7,797 children, and confirm that they are indeed dead.
Edit: If the IDF or Israel want to refute those numbers, it is extremely easy to do so: they can provide their own numbers, their own methodology, and allow independent experts to study them, like the ministry of health has. "Mysteriously", they have entirely failed to do so, just like they have failed to price that the hospitals they were bombing were Hamas control centers, and many other bogus claims they are making.