Has the UN really said fewer people were killed by Israel in Gaza?
No, is the short answer.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published on May 8 an infographic that referred to a figure of 34,844 total Palestinian deaths.
Below that, it said of the deaths: “24,686 identified as of 30 April as: 10,006 men, 4,959 women, 7,797 children, 1,924 elderly”.
The graphic used the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) figures and included a note that figures were “Not including more than 10,000 reported missing or under the rubble”.
The figures for bodies that had been identified were seized on by many media outlets as the UN “revising down” its estimates of the number of women and children Israel had killed in its assault on Gaza.
“There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those – which of those are children, which of those are women – that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete,” Haq said at the UN in New York.
Eighty-two of those people were killed in the last 24 hours.
Critics often criticise the MoH for being administered by Hamas, implying that its figures are not to be trusted.
However, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated on Tuesday that it has full confidence in the MoH’s numbers.
MoH statistics have also been verified by Human Rights Watch and used by the United States Department of State in past conflicts and as recently as March 2023, despite US President Joe Biden questioning those numbers without evidence.
This means that more than 10,000 recovered bodies are still unidentified.
Moreover, an estimated 10,000 people remain missing, most likely buried under the rubble across Gaza.
“There’s about another 10,000 plus bodies who still have to be fully identified, and so then the details of those – which of those are children, which of those are women – that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete,” UN spokesperson Haq said.
Some media outlets seized on the number breakdown as the UN having revised its numbers to a “more realistic figure” – without clarifying – as evidence of anti-Israeli bias within the UN.
In recent days, Egypt – with whom Israel has had a truce since 1979 – has joined South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide.
During an appearance on the Call Me Back podcast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to reference the change, saying the Israeli army had “been able to keep the ratio of civilians to combatants killed … [to] a ratio of about one to one”.
“Fourteen thousand have been killed, combatants,” he continued, “and probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed.”
