The United Nations (UN) and humanitarian organizations should view with “extreme caution” the daily numbers of fatalities from the conflict in Gaza that the Hamas government in that area reports, an Israeli army spokesman said on Monday.
“The UN believes these figures are credible, but I would exercise great caution in assuming the veracity of anything coming out of Gaza”military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said at a press conference in Geneva, which he attended virtually from Israel and ensured that Israel’s armed forces “do everything possible to minimize harm to civilians.”
In its daily information, the United Nations uses statistics from the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, which estimates the number of deaths in Israeli attacks at more than 8,000, including more than 3,000 children and more than 2,000 women.
“They keep increasing these numbers, they never say how many of these victims are fighters and for some reason the deaths in the 17 to 35 age group are underrepresented”Conricus argued.
‘Unfortunately, we see that these figures are used by many in the international media’added the spokesperson, who also pointed to the different figures used on the attack on Gaza’s Al Ahly hospital (for which Israelis and Palestinians blamed each other) as an example of Hamas’s “propaganda.”
As he recalled, the Gaza Health Ministry initially said that 500 children had died, but research by the European Union indicated that the number of victims could range between 10 and 50, a number that the United States had increased to “between 100 and 300”. .
The Islamist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7 with the launch of thousands of rockets and the raid of armed militiamen, taking more than 200 hostages.
In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, a movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and has been classified as terrorist by the European Union and the United States. Israel bombed several of the group’s infrastructures in the Gaza Strip and imposed a total siege. the area with an interruption of the supply of water, fuel and electricity.
The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths and injuries in both areas, among military personnel and civilians.
Source: DN
