{"id":28803,"date":"2026-02-02T06:54:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=28803"},"modified":"2026-02-02T06:54:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:54:59","slug":"how-western-officials-and-media-coverage-pushed-to-discredit-the-gaza-death-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/?p=28803","title":{"rendered":"How Western officials and media coverage pushed to discredit the Gaza death toll"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rights advocates say casting doubt over the Gaza death toll dehumanised Palestinians as Israel now acknowledges 70,000 killed.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Palestinians
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli attack in Gaza City, January 31, 2026 [Dawoud Abu Alkas\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>In the first 18 days of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military killed more than 7,000 Palestinians, including nearly 3,000 children, despite growing calls from around the world for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the United States, Israel\u2019s top ally, then-President Joe Biden\u00a0cast doubt over<\/a>\u00a0the suffering and death count of Palestinians, as provided by the Ministry of Health in Gaza, to push back against calls for ending the brutal Israeli assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they say to me is I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I\u2019m sure innocents have been killed, and it\u2019s the price of waging a war,\u201d Biden said in October 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than two years later, as the Palestinian death toll grew tenfold, the Israeli military acknowledged that it killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, confirming the Health Ministry\u2019s data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rights advocates say Western officials and media outlets helped the Israeli denial<\/a> of the scope of atrocities in Gaza, contributing to the dehumanisation of Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said the US government attempted to \u201cgaslight\u201d the world and discredit the Health Ministry numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis government played a role in that, and the Biden administration played a role in that,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey laid the groundwork for the Israeli officials to do the same thing. But ultimately, at the end, you cannot keep lying about what the world has been watching and witnessing with our own eyes,\u201d Ayoub said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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