It is hard/impossible to come up with an accurate death toll.
The Gaza Health Ministry systemically underreports the death toll by only counting bodies that they have directly observed.
Some third parties have tried to extrapolate from the reported numbers to get to the actual numbers; but that is a highly speculative endeavor under the best circumstances.
> by only counting bodies that they have directly observed
This was only true in an early phase of the conflict; they've long since been adding casualties reported by "reliable media sources" as well as a Google form.
The facts on the ground are extremely clear if you read what the aid agencies on the ground say instead of what gets passed off as news by American media.
In short: gazans are all issued ID numbers at birth. The ministry of health has published id numbers of the dead, which means you can do stats and tell if the data is fake. On top of that, so far (afaik since 2009 when hamas came to power) nobody has caught them in a lie. So they’ve a track record of telling the truth, and give us data that we can smell-test for fraud and it passes.
So yes, nobody else is on the ground to produce independent numbers, so the numbers can’t be fully verified. But using that doubt as an excuse for inaction in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocide is fucking disgusting.
> The ministry of health has published id numbers of the dead, which means you can do stats and tell if the data is fake. On top of that, so far (afaik since 2009 when hamas came to power) nobody has caught them in a lie. So they’ve a track record of telling the truth, and give us data that we can smell-test for fraud and it passes.
If you comment that they give us this data, surely you have a link to said data?
Surely you have the ability to google and find out for yourself. I don’t know if the data is available to the public, or just to journalists - but numerous reputable outlets have reported on this.
Yeah, we really need more verification that people are starving in Gaza. Why would people starve in Gaza? It's not like anybody has been bombing the city and blocking supply routes. Why would anybody starve there? We are going to need more proof than people saying that they don't have enough food.
