On Monday, the UN made it clear that the total number of deaths in Gaza recorded by the Ministry of Health since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 has remained constant at over 35,000.
The explanation follows the publication of a report on May 8 by the UN humanitarian agency OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), which included updated information about the number of Palestinian deaths in the conflict. The UN agency cut the number of women and children thought to have died in the conflict in half in its study.
The UN claims that rather than counting the overall number of women and children slain, it is now depending on the number of deceased women and children whose names and other identifying information have been thoroughly documented, which is why the figure was lowered. According to the government, the total number of deaths includes bodies that are brought to hospitals.
The health ministry in Gaza recently released two distinct death tolls: an overall death toll and a total number of recognized deaths, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said during a daily briefing at the UN. There was uncertainty in the UN report since it only included the total number of deaths for which personal information (birthdate and name) was available.
As to Haq’s report, the ministry released a breakdown of 24,686 dead that were fully recognized, out of the 34,622 total deaths that were reported in Gaza as of April 30. According to the UN spokesman, who cited the Gaza health ministry, the completely recognized death toll is 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 males.
The entire identifying information of the casualties are still being documented, according to the Gaza health ministry, Haq continued.
The officials stated that the roughly 10,000 persons who are still missing and buried beneath the debris are not included in the total number of deaths.
After the Islamist organization Hamas, which controls Gaza, murdered at least 1,200 Israeli citizens and kidnapped over 250 more, Israel began its military invasion of Gaza on October 7. Since then, Israel’s months-long siege of the Palestinian enclave has severely reduced vital supplies and crushed vast portions of Gaza, putting the whole population of more than 2.2 million people at risk of starvation.
A daily report from the Palestinian Ministry of Health that CNN has access to matches the amount that OCHA released in the updated version. Since October 7, 9,961 women and 15,103 children have died in Gaza, according to the most recent statistics from the ministry of health there.
The estimates from the Gaza Ministry of Health have previously been deemed trustworthy by both U.S. and UN authorities.
The ministry’s figures cannot be independently verified by CNN. The ministry does not make a distinction between civilian and combatant losses.