UN updated how it reports deaths in Gaza, did not admit to lying about them | Fact check

Nate Trela, USA TODAY
·4 min read
17

The claim: The UN admitted to lying about the number of deaths in Gaza

A May 13 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) makes a claim about the United Nations’ reporting of Palestinians killed during the war in the Gaza Strip.

“The UN admits they've been lying about deaths in GAZA – they've been more than DOUBLING the number to make Israel look bad!” the post reads.

Other social media users claimed the U.N. acknowledged sharing inaccurate numbers, while not saying it was intentional.

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Our rating: False

The U.N. changed the way it publishes death totals from the Gaza Strip, but it did not say earlier counts were incorrect. It now breaks out deaths of people who have been “identified" from "reported" deaths, a difference of more than 10,000 people as of May 17.

Confusion created by change in report detail

The U.N. has reported more than 35,000 people dead in Gaza since the latest round of fighting began in the territory in October. The U.N. sources data on the number of people killed in the current conflict from the territory’s government, which has led some to question the death toll's accuracy. Gaza has been led since 2007 by Hamas, whose Oct. 7 attack on Israel prompted the ongoing invasion of the strip.

Israel’s government has expressed doubts about the reported number of fatalities, particularly the counts of women and children killed. Those counts are frequently cited as an indicator of civilian deaths.

The numbers dispute heightened May 8 when the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs began listing "identified" dead as a subset of "reported" dead.

Its May 6 report said 34,735 Palestinians, including about 9,500 women and about 14,500 children had been killed in Gaza since the war began. The May 8 report, said there were 34,844 total reported fatalities, adding that 24,686 were “identified” as of April 30, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. That report also placed the number of women and children killed who had been identified at 4,959 and 7,797, respectively. Those figures included only those that had been identified so far.

Farhan Haq, a U.N. spokesperson, told USA TODAY the organization rejects any suggestion that it provided, intentionally or otherwise, false numbers.

"We do not provide any numbers if there is any doubt about their veracity," Haq said in an email. "In this case, we have always clearly indicated the source of the information. We are unable to verify the numbers firsthand given the ongoing fighting."

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Haq addressed the disparity in a May 13 news briefing, saying that more than 10,000 bodies were still in the process of being fully identified.

“And so then the details of those, which of those are children, which of those are women, that will be re-established once the full identification process is complete,” he said, according to a transcript.

Gaza's health ministry has struggled to keep its reports flowing and to fully identify victims – with name, age, sex and identification number – amid the destruction of infrastructure and the abandonment of some hospitals during the fighting, NPR reported. The Government Media Office in Gaza counts thousands of reported deaths of women and children that the health ministry has not identified, according to the BBC.

Haq told USA TODAY on May 17 that the health ministry now places the reported total deaths above 35,000, with thousands of identifications still needing to be completed. And he explained at the May 13 news conference why the organization thinks the ministry’s numbers are reliable.

“Unfortunately, we have the sad experience of coordinating with the Ministry of Health on casualty figures every few years for large mass casualty incidents in Gaza, and in past times, their figures have proven to be generally accurate,” he said.

USA TODAY could not reach the social media user who shared the claim for comment.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim UN admitted it lied about Gaza death toll | Fact check