Biden admin should check Hamas' Ministry of Health death stats, expert warns

The Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health released an infographic on April 24 through social media site Telegram indicating that it lacked identifying data for more than 10,000 of the 34,183 so-called martyrs who had been killed in the 200 days following Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Despite growing concerns over the Ministry of Health’s figures, the Biden administration continues to cite the ministry's data with no reference to its origin. In October, President Biden claimed that he had "no confidence" in Ministry of Health figures. In his March, State of the Union address, Biden shared the ministry’s data with a global audience without referencing its origin, noting that "more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas."

David Adesnik, senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that the incompleteness of data entries for 10,152 victims in an earlier April 21 data set should be "a flashing red light" for onlookers who have previously trusted ministry calculations of the death toll in Gaza.

Adesnik has called on the Biden administration to "ask the intelligence community to evaluate the data’s sources and accuracy" prior to citing Ministry of Health figures in the future.

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Adesnik explained that until the end of March, the Ministry of Health grouped victims of alleged "Israeli aggression" into two categories. In one category were the victims whose deaths have been reported by the Gazan hospital system. This category also includes thousands of deaths registered by family members who believe their loved ones’ bodies remain buried under