Gaza Health Ministry responds to Biden doubts
The Health Ministry in Gaza has published the names of 6,747 people who it says have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the Palestinian enclave since October 7.
The 210-page report, which came out on Thursday, includes the name, age, gender, and ID number of each of the victims, including those of 2,665 children.
The ministry said the list is not complete as almost 300 bodies remain unidentified, many people are missing, and some were buried without being admitted to the hospital.
US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he has “no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using” regarding the death toll in Gaza.
Biden went on to say that he has “no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” adding that he is “sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.”
Following the release of the names, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra called the Biden administration “devoid of human standards, morals and basic human rights values” for “shamelessly” questioning the validity of the death toll.
“We decided to… announce, with details and names, and in front of the entire world, the truth about the genocidal war committed by the Israeli occupation against our people,” he said, adding that the report was published to “let the world know that behind every number is the story of a person whose name and identity are known. Our people are not nobodies who can be ignored.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been relentlessly bombarding Gaza for almost three weeks since the October 7 surprise attack on Israel by Hamas, which claimed 1,400 lives. Residential buildings and mosques have been destroyed in the strikes on the Palestinian enclave, and the Israeli authorities have accused Hamas fighters of hiding behind civilians. The IDF announced plans for a ground invasion of Gaza, but the operation is currently delayed.
The Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that his organization’s three decades of experience working in the occupied Palestinian territories has shown the numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry to be “generally reliable.” The ministry bases its figures on data it receives from hospitals and morgues, Shakir said.
