According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli counterstrikes. According to their data, so far at least 5,600 children and 3,550 women died in Gaza, since the beginning of the conflict, writes the BBC.

In its article, the British public service medium investigated how the Gaza Ministry of Health counts the dead. As they write, the figures of the Gaza Ministry of Health are questioned by Israel, but recently the number of Israeli victims had to be corrected by about 200 – from 1,400 to 1,200. Joe Biden the US president also said earlier that he “doesn’t trust” the Gaza statistics. On the other hand, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and other international organizations are currently of the opinion that there is no reason to discredit them.

The Gaza Ministry of Health regularly announces the death toll on social media, breaking down the number of women, children and the elderly, as well as the number of wounded and missing. The report does not address the cause of death, does not distinguish between military and civilian deaths, and describes the dead as victims of “Israeli aggression”.

Health Ministry officials told the BBC that death figures are recorded by health professionals before being passed on to them, so the statistics only report deaths registered in hospital. According to Gazan officials, the reported figures may be underestimates, as they do not take into account those who died at the site of the explosions or whose bodies have not been found. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, some of them are still under the rubble.

The portal is about statistics, among other things Dr. Gassán Abu-Szíttá, asked the London-based plastic surgeon of the international organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), who currently treats the injured in hospitals in Gaza and plays an important role in registering the dead. According to him, deaths are recorded at the morgue after the identity of the deceased has been confirmed with the relatives. Abu-Szítta believes that the number of deaths registered so far is much less than what actually happened. “Most deaths occur at home, […] which we could not identify, we did not register,” he said. And if someone finds a dead body, it “must be taken to the hospital to be registered,” said a spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent.