The post was viewed more than 5 million times. It is intended to be evidence that the statistics on the number of deaths in the Gaza Strip compiled by the Palestinian Territory's Ministry of Health and picked up by Osha (the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) are incorrect. “A close examination of the Gaza casualty figures reported by UN Osha, based on daily figures from the Hamas “Ministry of Health,” proves them to be FAKE. Women and children are severely bloated. This is easy to prove, but is ignored by the media,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on December 4 at the start of a thread on the topic.
The author of the messages tweeting under the account @Aizenberg55, is a member of HonestReporting, a website that exposes alleged anti-Israel bias in the media. CheckNews recently had the opportunity to speak about this organization, which accused major media photojournalists of accompanying Hamas on October 7, suggesting possible prior knowledge of the terrorist operation. We used the photos' metadata to demonstrate that no photojournalist had crossed the border with Hamas members and that there was no evidence that they had knowledge of the project. Terrorist.
In its series of tweets, the account points out five inconsistencies.
🧵Critical thread. A close examination of the Gaza casualty figures reported by UN OCHA based on daily figures from the Hamas “Ministry of Health” shows that they are FAKE. Women and children are greatly inflated. This is easy to obtain but ignored by the media. See detailed illustration below: 1/
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) December 4, 2023
An increase that includes two days of strike, not just one
We looked at these statistics. This suggests that most of the very real inconsistencies that appear in Osha's daily reports can be explained simply by errors on the part of the UN agency.
The most recent problem identified by @Aizenberg55 comes from Thursday: “On November 7th, Hamas reported a total of 10,328 deaths, compared to 10,022 the day before,” writes the author, who indicates that the increase is therefore +306 in 24 hours. However, the number of new deaths among women and children is +302. “That means ONLY FOUR men, regardless of age, were killed that day! That corresponds to 1.3% of the deaths that day.” And ironically: “That’s what the NGOs and the UN are counting on.”
The screenshots from the Ocha website actually show that the cumulative number of women killed since October 7 rose from 2,550 to 2,719 between November 6 and 7, an increase of 169, while the number of children who died increased by 133 and 302 for women and children respectively. Aside from the fact that the explanation lies in OCHA’s poor “reporting” of the data…
If we look at the November 6 death toll in the UN office's publications, we see that the UN agency forgot to report the increase in the number of women killed reported by the Gaza Health Ministry. The values (2,550) are actually identical for two days (November 5th and 6th). This explains this very strong increase on November 7th in women, as the increase includes two attack days and not just one. So the incongruence is due to an error in Ocha's entry and not an inconsistency in the ministry's numbers. In fact, on November 6, several media outlets (CNN, Al-Jazeera, etc.) stated in reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health that the number of deaths of women in Gaza increased from 2,550 on November 5 to 2,641 on November 6, then to 2,719 on November 7th or 78 more between November 6th and 7th. Result: The increase in the number of deaths of women and children between November 6th and 7th is actually 211 (78+133) and that of men is 95 (and not just 4 as many think). “Internet user Aizenberg55).
Same problem and same conclusion
Two other supposed anomalies pointed out by the author can be explained in exactly the same way. “On October 31, 8,525 deaths were reported, compared to 8,309 the previous day, i.e. +216. The number of new deaths among women and children was +210. This means that ONLY SIX men, regardless of age, were killed that day! That corresponds to 2.8% of deaths that day!” he writes.
In reality, Ocha publishes the same number of cumulative female deaths for October 29 and 30, namely 2,062, while the figure reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health for October 30 is 2,136, according to an article by RTBF or even the live broadcast of Le Figaro. However, since the cumulative number of women killed on October 31 is 2,187, the increase in 24 hours between October 30 and 31 is no longer 125 but 51, and for children +136 and no longer +210, like Aizenberg55 writes. And so the number of male deaths over 24 hours is 80, not 6.
The same problem and the same false conclusion for the October 26th data: “On October 26th, the author writes, Hamas reported 7,028 deaths compared to 6,547 the day before, or +481.” Notably, the number killed Women and children increased by +626 on the same day! Apparently no one died that day. Once again, no trace of shame or skepticism from the UN regarding the publication of these Hamas figures!”
The inconsistency still lies in the fact of Ocha, who forgot to update the cumulative number of women killed as of October 25, giving 1,292 (as the previous day) instead of 1,584, which corresponds to the actual number communicated by the Ministry of Health. As can be seen from his tweet from October 25th.
This new error from Ocha explains the inconsistent spike pointed out by Aizenberg55 between October 25th and 26th. With the correct number of cumulative female deaths for October 25, this results in +125 women killed between October 25 and 26 rather than +417, and the number of women and children killed between those two days is more than 626, as Aizenberg55 claims, but 334. Which is consistent with the overall increase (+481).
Communication failure
However, CheckNews cannot explain the inconsistency pointed out by the author for October 29th. “On October 29th, +302 new deaths were reported, but somehow among them were +199 women and +129 children, so +328, which is 26 more than the total number of deaths!” Have men come back to life? But of course let’s trust these statistics,” jokes Aizenberg55.
However, it should be noted that this comes at a time when communications are disrupted due to the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. A press release from Okha on October 28th therefore notes problems with the Palestinian enclave during this period, which could explain the difficulties in data reporting. “Contact with the Gaza Strip has been lost since October 27 at around 6 p.m. after landline, mobile and internet lines were cut. Therefore, this update contains little current information about the humanitarian situation in Gaza over the past 24 hours,” the agency wrote.
The author concludes by pointing out one last element: on October 19, the total number of cumulative deaths was 3,785 deaths compared to 3,478 the previous day, i.e. +307. This contradicts, he emphasizes, the increase in the number of children killed, which rose from 853 to 1,524 or +671 on the same day. The author does not note that Ocha states in his press release that the figure of 853 is from two days earlier. That would partly explain the very strong increase. However, CheckNews was only able to reconstruct the data on the children on October 19th. And for good reason, they were not communicated daily that day.
As CheckNews detailed in an October 21 article, the Department of Health's statistics have not been verifiable for two months. OCHA, which independently collected data on mortality in Gaza, can no longer carry out this work due to the intensity of the conflict and bombings. In the UN office's database, the last validated figures are from the end of September. Since then, the only primary source of assessment for the various UN bodies and journalists has been the Palestinian Ministry of Health – de facto Hamas.
However, according to a Times of Israel article published on December 4, based on reports consulted by the AP and AFP agencies, the Israeli army nevertheless believes that “the total death toll in Gaza given by Hamas is quite accurate.” .