On May 8, the OCHA published a report listing the death toll in Gaza at 24,000, with 7,700 children and 4,900 women killed — approximately half of the latest number of dead women and children provided by the government’s media office. Pro-Israel media ran with the seeming difference, and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested there was
some kind of conspiracy afoot.
According to the
Health Ministry’s latest official count, 35,000 people in Gaza have been killed, 15,000 of whom are children and nearly 10,000 women. Those numbers are not in dispute, Haq said, and the 24,000 figure from the OCHA report represents the people "for whom full details have been documented — in other words, people who have been fully identified.”
His remarks square with the Health Ministry's recent statement that about 10,000 people in its official count
have not yet been identified. Christian Lindmeier, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization,
backed the 35,000 figure as well. “The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward,” he said.
Documenting the number of people killed in a war zone is a
monumental task that becomes increasingly difficult over time. Last month, for example, hundreds of bodies were uncovered in several mass graves near hospitals, some of which were
so severely decomposed that they were unrecognizable.