A spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, Jonathan Conricus, says casualty figures released regularly by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health and reported by international aid organizations and the foreign press are wildly inflated and that any journalist repeating them is “complicit” in a campaign to discredit Israel and its ongoing war against the terrorist group.

“I can’t even count how many times journalists base their perceptions, questions and reporting on these false and misleading numbers,” Mr. Conricus says in a social media post. “This thread is vital for understanding how thinly veiled Hamas lies are, and how complicit journalists who rely on them are.”

Mr. Conricus was responding to a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, by author Salo Aizenberg Monday that its author describes as a “detailed exposé” of the deceit offered up daily by Hamas’ Ministry of Health. Mr. Aizenberg is the author of two 2022 reports for NGO Monitor debunking claims by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that Israel is an “apartheid state.”

In his thread, Mr. Aizenberg notes that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has been releasing daily “flash updates” about the toll of the war on Palestinians in Gaza. The office relies on casualty figures provided by Hamas that claim more than 15,500 fatalities since the war began — more than two-thirds of them women and children — a war the agency describes as a “major humanitarian crisis.”

“It is immediately obvious that Hamas does not report ANY combatant deaths & the numbers amazingly seem to indicate that IDF bombs & bullets disproportionately hit women, children & elderly,” Mr. Aizenberg notes. “The IDF CANNOT seem to hit too many fighting age men. But the numbers are faked.”

As evidence for his allegation, Mr. Aizenberg notes that on October 19, the Gaza Ministry of Health, and the UN office, reported cumulative deaths totalling 3,785 versus 3,478 cumulative deaths the previous day, an increase of 307. Somehow, he notes, the total number of children killed at that point rose from 853 on the 18th to 1,524 the following day, an increase of 671. So on October 18, 25 percent of those killed in Gaza were children, he notes, but the following day they accounted for 40 percent of the total.

On October 26th, Mr. Aizenberg notes, Hamas reported cumulative deaths of 7,028 versus 6,547 the previous day, an increase of 481. The number of women and children reported killed by Hamas on October 26th jumped by 626. “No men died that day apparently,” Mr. Aizenberg notes. “Again, no hint of shame or skepticism by UN to publish these Hamas numbers.”

In his thread, Mr. Aizenberg makes note of similar patterns in the reporting of casualties. On multiple days, according to the Hamas reports, there were no male deaths, or only a handful of them, anywhere in Gaza, if the reports are taken at face value.

“Another unmentioned change: as of Nov 20 ‘Ministry of Health’ stopped reporting numbers and since then it’s the ‘Media Office’ taking charge,” Mr. Aizenberg notes. “Hamas is not even pretending that these numbers are reliable anymore. It’s just PR.”

The Associated Press is among the dozens of American press outlets that report the casualty figures from Hamas daily as fact. An AP dispatch Tuesday reads, “The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the territory since October 7 has surpassed 15,890, with more than 41,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70% of the dead were women and children.”

According to Israeli press reports Tuesday, the IDF says it has killed more than 6,000 Hamas terrorists in the conflict so far. The IDF estimates that around 20,000 of Hamas’ army of some 30,000 fighters are still alive.