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=== Death toll ===
On 25 October, US President [[Joe Biden]] stated he had "no confidence" in the death totals reported by the Gaza Health Ministry.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Dobkin |first1=Rachel |title=Biden Accuses Palestinians of Lying About Civilian Death Tolls |url=https://www.newsweek.com/biden-accuses-palestinians-lying-about-civilian-death-tolls-1837971 |date=25 October 2023 |work=[[Newsweek]] |access-date=26 October 2023 |quote="What they say to me is that I have no notion the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many are killed ... I'm sure innocents have been killed and it's the price of waging a war ... The Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they're focusing on going after the folks that are 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.""What they say to me is that I have no notion the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many are killed ... I'm sure innocents have been killed and it's the price of waging a war ... The Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they're focusing on going after the folks that are 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."}}</ref><ref name="Gaza death toll">{{cite news |title=Gaza death toll from health ministry is 'reliable': Rights expert |url=https://aje.io/4hsru5?update=2437504 |publisher=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Harb |first1=Ali |title=Why does Biden doubt the Palestinian death count in the Israel-Gaza war?|url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/26/appalling-why-has-biden-cast-doubt-on-the-palestinian-death-count |publisher=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] |access-date=28 October 2023}}</ref> In response, [[Human Rights Watch]] stated that after three decades working in Gaza and conducting its own investigation, it considers Gaza Health Ministry's totals to be reliable.<ref name="Gaza death toll" /> [[Matthew Miller (spokesperson)|Matthew Miller]] made a similar claim to Biden's, despite the fact that the [[US Department of State]] cites the Gaza Health Ministry's death tolls in its own internal reports.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shahid Ahmed |first1=Akbar |title=Biden Cast Doubt On Gaza's Death Statistics — But Officials Cite Them Internally |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-gaza-death-toll-state-department_n_653a80f3e4b0783c4ba0491f |work=[[Huffington Post]] |date=26 October 2023 |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref> On 26 October, the Gaza Health Ministry responded by releasing a 212-page document of 6,747 individual names and [[Identifier|ID numbers]], as well as 281 unidentified fatalities.<ref>{{cite news |title=Gaza health ministry issues list of names of 7,000 people killed in Israeli bombing |url=https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2023/10/26/Gaza-health-ministry-issues-list-of-names-of-7-000-people-killed-in-Israeli-bombing |work=[[Al-Arabiya]] |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref> The US State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs told a Congressional hearing on 9 November that the death toll was "very high, frankly, and it could be that they're even higher than are being cited."<ref>{{cite web | last=Salama | first=Vivian | title=State Department Says Gaza Death Toll Could Be Higher Than Reported | website=WSJ | date=November 8, 2023 | url=https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza-strip-2023-11-08/card/state-department-warns-gaza-death-toll-could-be-higher-than-reported-RWmIIiwHT4DfsOaJrZji | access-date=November 9, 2023}}</ref> (The Gaza Health Ministry numbers do not distinguish deaths among combatants and noncombatants, nor do they take into account cause of death, as explained above; i.e., the number is a simple tally of total Gazan deaths since 7 October 2023.)
Every death registered in Gaza is the result of a verified change in the [[Civil registration|population registry]] approved by the [[Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories|Government of Israel]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The population registry |url=https://gisha.org/en/the-population-registry/ |work=Gisha |date=14 November 2011 |access-date=26 October 2023}} [[Gisha (human rights organization)|Gisha]], an Israeli NGO, states, "Israel continues to control the Palestinian population registry which is common to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Any change made in these records requires Israel's approval, including the registration of births, marriages, divorces, deaths or address changes."</ref> The Israeli government notes that its "Population Registry Office works to update population registry files located on the Israeli side to match the files that are held" in the West Bank and Gaza.<ref>{{cite web |title=Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories |url=https://www.gov.il/en/departments/units/population_registrar_unit |work=Government of Israel |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref> On 26 October, the [[United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs|United Nations humanitarian office]] added they use the Gaza Ministry of Health's death totals because they are "clearly sourced"<ref>{{cite news |title=OCHA says 'continues to include' Gaza health ministry data in reporting |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/10/26/israel-hamas-war-live-un-ceasefire-bid-fails-as-gaza-death-toll-soars |publisher=[[Al Jazeera English|Al Jazeera]] |access-date=26 October 2023}}</ref> and their estimates have been described as trustworthy by the [[World Health Organization]]'s (WHO) regional emergency director Richard Brennan.<ref name=bbccasualties/> On 6 December, a peer-reviewed article by [[Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health]] scholars in ''[[The Lancet]]'' concluded the Gaza Ministry of Health's death tolls were accurate.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Huynh |first1=Benjamin Q. |last2=Chin |first2=Elizabeth T. |last3=Spiegel |first3=Paul B. |title=No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health |journal=The Lancet |date=6 December 2023 |volume=403 |issue=10421 |pages=23–24 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02713-7 |pmid=38070526 |s2cid=265664650 |url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02713-7/fulltext |access-date=12 December 2023}}</ref>
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