A new investigative report into the accuracy those numbers reveals that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) concludes the numbers provided by the Gaza Health Ministry are correct. For months, doubt has been cast over the accuracy of the numbers given that the Health Ministry administered by Hamas and that high profile figures and publications have openly discounted the figures. Behind closed doors, Israeli officials tell a different story. Sources within the Israeli military were interviewed by Mekomit/+972 Magazine and said their military intelligence system relies almost exclusively on numbers provided by the Health Ministry to assess how many civilians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. One of the unnamed sources stated that “a comprehensive investigation was conducted during the war, which included classified actions, which suggested that the numbers published by the Ministry of Health in Gaza were ‘totally reliable’ in assessing the numbers of civilians killed, both present and previous operations,” 972 reported. Senior officials at the Health Ministry have been monitored by Israeli authorities in order to better understand “if there are things they do not report publicly,” said an Israeli source. “This test revealed that they could be trusted in the context of fatalities.” This new information directly contradicts President Joe Biden, who publicly stated he had “no confidence” in the numbers provided by the Health Ministry, and directly accused Palestinians of lying about the civilian death toll. The statements from Israeli intelligence officials also belie a wide spectrum of publications — from The Guardian, which holds a left-wing bias, to Breitbart News, which holds an extreme right-wing bias — which have sown doubt as to the credibility of the numbers of civilian deaths reported by the Health Ministry. One source says that the Health Ministry’s death toll numbers are currently being presented regularly in meetings and briefings by Israeli officials after being deemed “trusted” in the military’s examination of the data. As of Jan 26, the Health Ministry says that 26,083 people have been killed, while more than 64,000 have been wounded in Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 attack.Following the ongoing bombing campaign by Israeli forces in Gaza after last fall’s deadly Hamas attack, there has been widespread speculation as to who is providing an accurate count of the Palestinian death toll.
Editor's Note: A previous version of this article included a headline with the phrase "totally accurate," which has since been changed to "totally reliable"
