Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says

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Aftermath of an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, May 14, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
  • Gaza health ministry updates death toll breakdown
  • Israel has questioned accuracy of data
  • WHO calls changes a 'step forward'
GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.
Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.
This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.
"Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added.
Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.
He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.
"We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."

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Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi; editing by Matthias Williams and Alex Richardson

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Emma Farge reports on the U.N. beat and Swiss news from Geneva since 2019. She has produced a string of exclusives on diplomacy, the environment and global trade and covered Switzerland’s first war crimes trial. Her Reuters career started in 2009 covering oil swaps from London and she has since written about the West African Ebola outbreak, embedded with U.N. troops in north Mali and was the first reporter to enter deposed Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh’s estate. She co-authored a winning story for the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize on Russia’s diplomatic isolation in 2022 and was also part of a team of journalists nominated in 2012 as Pulitzer finalists in the international reporting category for coverage of the Libyan revolution. She holds a BA from Oxford University (First) and an MSc from the LSE in International Relations. She is currently on the board of the press association for UN correspondents in Geneva (ACANU).

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