Weeks after it was exposed that Hamas’ so-called “Gaza Health Ministry” has been circulating false casualty figures, much of the media are still reporting them without a hint of skepticism.
In April, research by Salo Aizenberg, a board member of HonestReporting, revealed that thousands of previously “identified” deaths — including more than 1,000 children allegedly killed in Israeli airstrikes — had quietly disappeared from Hamas’ own tallies.
Aizenberg’s findings echoed a December report by the Henry Jackson Society, which documented how Hamas had systematically inflated civilian casualty numbers to suggest that Israel targets non-combatants.
Earlier this month, the same organization published a follow-up report — co-authored by Aizenberg — examining Hamas’ long-documented tactic of maximizing Palestinian civilian casualties. Despite the IDF releasing “thousands of high-quality videos and photographs” showing Hamas embedding itself in civilian infrastructure — from schools and hospitals to apartment buildings — the media continue to dismiss these tactics as “unverified.”
The report also highlights a revealing exchange with a UN official regarding the June 2024 Children and Armed Conflict report. Asked why Hamas’ use of human shields was barely mentioned — reduced to a vague reference to “reports” — the official replied that “word count” limitations prevented deeper discussion. Yes, really.
So let’s review:
- Hamas has been caught falsifying death tolls.
- The IDF has provided extensive visual and forensic evidence of its human shield strategy.
- Independent researchers have flagged glaring inconsistencies.
- Even the UN admits it downplayed Hamas’ tactics — for “space reasons.”
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And yet, the world’s most influential newsrooms keep parroting Hamas’ numbers — without context, without caution, and without challenge.
Perhaps the most surreal entry in this trend comes courtesy of The Economist, which recently suggested that the real Gaza death toll may actually be understated. In a piece published May 9, the magazine acknowledges, in passing, that “Hamas… has an incentive to inflate civilian losses,” only to spend the rest of the article treating that incentive as irrelevant. The piece leans on speculative modelling and questionable methodology — including overlapping obituary lists, anonymous online surveys, and widely-debunked claims printed in the medical journal The Lancet — to argue that the true toll may be up to 107% higher than Hamas’ own figures. In other words: the numbers may be inflated by Hamas and also too low.
The article even notes, without alarm, that nearly 4,000 names were quietly scrubbed from Hamas’ death lists — a fact any serious journalist might treat as a red flag, not a footnote. Yet somehow, The Economist concludes not that the casualty figures are dubious, but that they’re too conservative. It’s the kind of logic only possible when a predetermined narrative — not evidence — is driving the reporting.
In just the past week, major international outlets — including Reuters, CBS News, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, International Business Times, ABC News Australia, The Guardian, and Axios — have all published inflated Gaza casualty figures with little or no skepticism. Several even repeated the demonstrably false claim that the majority of those killed were women and children.
NBC News, for example, reported on May 11 that “Israel’s offensive has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry” — adding only that the ministry “does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants.” But the implication is unmistakable: if most of the dead are women and children, readers are meant to assume they’re civilians — and that Israel is targeting them.
Most outlets didn’t even bother with that note of caution. Reuters, on May 6, stated: “Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has since killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians according to local health authorities.” No caveats. No context. Just Hamas’s line, reprinted as fact.
CBS News, in a May 12 article, tied the rising death toll directly to Israel’s “renewed offensive” — conveniently omitting that it was Hamas who collapsed the ceasefire. It wrote: “Although family members of those in ongoing captivity have repeatedly pleaded with American and Israeli leaders to solidify a deal prioritizing the hostages’ safe return, Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas in March and renewed its offensive in Gaza, where Palestinian officials said the death toll has risen to almost 53,000.”
Then there’s NPR, which avoided naming the source altogether. In a May 10 piece, it credited “Gaza health authorities” — a familiar euphemism for Hamas — with the claim that “more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks on the territory since the start of the war in October 2023,” followed by a brief nod to the October 7 massacre.
When Hamas lies, the media listens. When Hamas deletes names, the media keep counting. And when overwhelming evidence shows those numbers are manipulated, the media shrug — and print them anyway.
This isn’t journalism. It’s stenography for a terrorist group with every motive to lie and every opportunity to do so.
It’s long past time for reporters and editors to show some basic professional skepticism. Because if the source is Hamas — and readers are not being told that — the story isn’t the truth.
A message to the media: When citing Gaza casualty figures, add: “According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures have been repeatedly disputed and revised.”
It really is that simple.
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