White House Uses Hamas-Provided Casualty Figures for Gaza in Official Ramadan Statement

In October 2023, President Joe Biden said, "I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using."

On Sunday, the White House released an official Statement from President Joseph R. Biden on the Occasion of Ramadan. In the second paragraph, the president raises the Israel-Gaza war and, without citing a source, states that “30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children.” [emphasis added below]

The sacred month is a time for reflection and renewal. This year, it comes at a moment of immense pain. The war in Gaza has inflicted terrible suffering on the Palestinian people. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians, including thousands of children. Some are family members of American Muslims, who are deeply grieving their lost loved ones today. Nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced by the war; many are in urgent need of food, water, medicine, and shelter. As Muslims gather around the world over the coming days and weeks to break their fast, the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many. It is front of mind for me.

The 30,000 figure is based on information provided by the Gaza health ministry, which operates in Gaza under the control of the Hamas terrorist organization. Reporting this latest milestone on February 29, the New York Times asserted that “[m]any experts say the official toll is very likely an undercount, given the difficulty of accurately tallying deaths amid unrelenting fighting, communications disruptions, a collapsing medical system and people still believed to be under rubble.” The Times acknowledged that the “figures provided by the Gazan health ministry do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.”

In the weeks following the October 7th by Hamas and Israel’s retaliation, the president was asked about the figures supplied by the Gaza health ministry and what those numbers said to him. The president replied [emphasis added]:

What they say to me is I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.

I think we should be incredibly careful. I think — well, not “we” — the Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they’re focusing on going after the folks that are the pr- — propagating this war against Israel. And it’s against their interest when that doesn’t happen.

But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.

In February, after President Biden in public remarks used a figure of 27,000 dead, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if the White House now had confidence in the Gaza health ministry figures. Jean-Pierre did not directly answer, but when pressed, said:

We know thousands of lives have been lost. We know that. We know that. And, you know, we’re going to speak to that when asked. We’re going to say that is not okay. Right? We’re going to say that is not okay.

Obviously, we’re also going to continue to say Israel has a right to defend itself. We’re going to also have those conversation with the Israeli government on how to make sure that we cont- — that we — that they make sure that they follow the international humanitarian law and that they protect civilian lives — innocent civilian lives.

So, those conversations are going to continue to happen. But we know — we know thousands of lives have been lost.

Just a little over a week ago, Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin was asked how many Palestinian women and children had been killed since October 7th. “It’s over 25,000," his his reply. According to The Hill, the "Pentagon... issued a clarification that Austin was ‘citing an estimate from the Hamas-controlled health ministry [of] more than 25,000 total Palestinians...’"

Despite the New York Times report that most experts accept the Gaza health ministry figures, a recent article by Abraham Wyner, Professor of Statistics and Data Science at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in Tablet Magazine argues that the numbers are extremely unreliable and are likely fake:

Here’s the problem with this data: The numbers are not real. That much is obvious to anyone who understands how naturally occurring numbers work. The casualties are not overwhelmingly women and children, and the majority may be Hamas fighters.

Despite using the Hamas-provided figures, President Biden’s Ramadan statement never directly holds Hamas responsible for the war and its consequences, instead passively saying that the “war in Gaza has inflicted terrible suffering on the Palestinian people.”