Investigations confirm Hamas manipulated the number of children and civilians killed in Gaza

Columnist Andrea Peyser confirmed in an opinion piece published in the New York Post that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has been spreading false figures about the number of children and civilians killed in Gazasince the jihadist organization's October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, in which they murdered thousands of innocents and kidnapped hundreds of people. Peyser detailed that Hamas itself has admitted this fact by its actions, adding that Gaza's own Ministry of Health - which is controlled by the same terrorist group - manipulated the numbers that they would eventually issue as official figures, which were echoed by both governments and media in the West and other parts of the world.

As the American writer detailed, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health removed from its official lists 3,400 peoplethat it had previously reported as victims of IDF shelling, adding that, of those manipulated figures, at least 1,080 were alleged children who never actually died. The writer explained that this action represents a clear way in which the terrorist group would be admitting to manipulating the death toll.

Despite Peyser's revelations, the impact of the lie disseminated to the world by Hamas through the Gaza Ministry of Health has been strong enough to provoke massive demonstrations against Israel, the rise of anti-Semitism in the West, and numerous activists and political leaders positioning themselves in favor of the terrorist group.

Serious manipulations

In his op-ed, Peyser detailed that the most recent report by the think tank Henry Jackson Society revealed that the jihadist organization not only manipulated the numbers of dead, but also the demographic profiles of the alleged victims. The report's author, Andrew Fox, explained that while Hamashas said through the Gaza Ministry of Health that 70% of those killed in the city were women and children, the lists were completely manipulated, as actually 72% of the dead would be men between the ages of 13 and 55, among whom the vast majority would be fighters of the terrorist group.

The think tank report also denounced serious manipulations in the lists of the dead published by the ministry, revealing that it went so far as to register men aged 22 as 4-year-old boys and men aged 31 as babies of one. Similarly, the Henry Jackson Society revealed that the ministry also included numerous deaths that had been occurring months before the conflictin its list, as well as cancer patients who had been registered for medical treatment after being declared dead, as well as victims of Hamas itself.

The columnist detailed that the revelation of these lies and manipulations by Hamas, through the Gaza Ministry of Health, comes just days after Palestinian civilians demonstrated against the terrorist group, whom they blame for the escalation of the armed conflict and the fact that it has not yet been able to come to an end. Some have even gone so far as to call for Hamas to be removed from power.

While what Peyser and the think tank have done shows how the number of casualties has been grossly manipulated, all figures issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health should be taken with the greatest possible skepticism, as it is a body directly controlled by Hamas, which is well aware of the importance of manipulation as a pillar of its propaganda.