US skepticism about number of Gaza martyrs 'brazen denial': PIJ

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
27 Oct 2023 06:22

The PIJ condemns the American skepticism about the number of martyrs of the Israeli occupation massacres in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians inspect the rubble of destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes on the town of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Dahman)

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement considered in a statement that the American skepticism about the number of martyrs in the Israeli occupation massacres in Gaza is a "brazen denial of the magnitude of the holocaust that the Palestinian people are being subjected to."

The Health Ministry in Gaza that 7,028 people were martyred since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on October 7. The ministry published a document detailing the names of the martyrs, their ID numbers, their ages, and their gender. The 212-page document reveals the horrific crimes committed by the Israelis.

However, US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he had "no confidence" in the figures presented by the Ministry. Similarly, the US State Department also claimed that it lacks a means to conduct an independent and accurate assessment of the number of civilian casualties in Gaza because all the figures provided were ultimately presented by Hamas.

Nonetheless, according to available data, 12 out of 20 reports issued by the US State Department were compiled by its embassy in occupied al-Quds, starting from October 8 - a day after the beginning of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood - and were sent to the Health Ministry in Gaza to determine the number of Palestinian martyrs, including a report submitted on October 25.

In one of the reports dated October 21, the US official who crafted the memorandum wrote, "Regarding the number of casualties and wounded on the previous day among the residents of Gaza, it is highly likely that the numbers are much higher."

Furthermore, the annual human rights report issued by the US State Department indirectly relies on casualty figures published by the Health Ministry in Gaza because it conveys UN statistics derived from the Ministry's data, including a report published earlier this year on the human rights situation in the Israeli occupation and Palestine, as per The Guardian.

This is not the first time Washington has attempted to obfuscate and obscure the crimes of the Israeli occupation in Gaza. The US previously attempted to absolve the Israeli occupation of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital massacre in Gaza, indirectly pointing to a failed rocket by the Palestinian Resistance as a cause of the bombing that killed at least 400 Gazans.

This comes as the Israeli occupation continues its brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip for the 21st consecutive day, targeting civilian houses, schools, and the vicinity of hospitals, as the healthcare system in the Strip is now completely out of service and in a state of total collapse.

In addition, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior and National Security Iyad Al-Bazm confirmed on Thursday that the count of missing individuals trapped under the debris in all Gaza governorates has risen to 1,950 since the onset of the aggression.

Salama Marouf, head of the government media office in Gaza, reported that Israeli occupation forces have carried out over 688 massacres against Palestinian families since the commencement of the aggression.