#Gaza / UN says Gaza death toll still over 35,000 but not all bodies identified
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last week changed the breakdown of fatalities it publishes from Gaza, based on official sources in the Strip, so that the number of women and children killed was cut in half. The UN explained this evening (Monday) that the change stems from the fact that in recent reports it relied on a breakdown from Hamas' Ministry of Information, but at the end of April it received an updated breakdown from the Gaza Ministry of Health. However, the UN emphasized that the overall death toll of around 35,000 remains the same (not including missing persons).
Israeli media is celebrating this updated report while omitting the important parts:
[1] OCHA is doing its job and updating its statistics when more data becomes available,
and most importantly,
[2] OCHA numbers now only include IDENTIFIED bodies it receives from the Gaza Ministry of Health,
[3] the overall death toll of people killed by IDF has not changed and it is still and astonishingly 35,000 … a testament to the barbaric nature of the indiscriminate revenge attack on Gaza by Israel.
[…] Haq said those figures were for identified bodies - 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men - adding: "The Ministry of Health says that the documentation process of fully identifying details of the casualties is ongoing."
