When we checked yesterday, the civilian death toll in Gaza was up to 8,000, mostly women and children. The mainstream media parrots that number, even though it comes from the same source that claimed Israel had blown up a hospital and killed 500 people: the Gaza Health Ministry. Every story you read about civilian casualties in Gaza cites the Gaza Health Ministry, which is of course run by Hamas. Are we saying that Hamas is deliberately inflating casualties? Yes, exactly.
NBC News' Ben Goggin tweets that he's heard a lot of questions about his sharing of Gaza's civilian death toll, and he thought he'd explain why he uses the numbers he does.
In the last day I’ve had a fair amount of questioning about my sharing of statistics from Gaza’s ministry of health, which is overseen by Hamas, as are the rest of Gaza’s services. In the interest of transparency, I want to explain why I, and many in media, continue to do this.
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
Yes, why?
1) there are few if any sources aside from the ministry of health that could generate such statistics right now. Even if more journalists were allowed into the region, they could not capture the scale of loss of human life in their reporting so quickly.
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
2) international orgs and our own US government have previously cited these same statistics, and reported initial assessments have not found major red flags with the numbers compared to estimates generated from satellite imagery.https://t.co/P3xsa4fHDL
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
Even President Joe Biden warned Americans not to believe the numbers coming from Hamas, angering a lot of his supporters.
3) I trust that readers provided with data points whose sources are clearly and truthfully labeled can and should come to their own conclusions.
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
4) The numbers from the ministry of health align with less statistically driving reporting coming from Gaza.
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
It’s important that we not ignore clear mass-scale death right in front of us.https://t.co/uCSZpUcfxr
Here's NBC News' Goggin citing the Associated Press, which is citing the Gaza Health Ministry.
5) i’ve heard concerns that a focus on the Gaza data could pull focus from the attack in Israel or inspire antisemitism.
— Ben Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) October 31, 2023
I hope that’s not the case, and the recent antisemitic events have been horrifying. But ignoring aspects of the war would only create more anger and distrust.
There's nothing the media could do at this point to create more distrust. And those "concerns" are well founded: Hamas is trying to pull focus from the 1,400 slaughtered in Israel. Sure they invaded Israel and slaughtered over a thousand civilians, but forget about that for now. It doesn't matter who started it — instead, it's just a big scoreboard.
NBC extremism reporter: "actually, me amplifying false Hamas propaganda is good." https://t.co/lP4ZFeaZZn
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 31, 2023
“I knowingly repeat propaganda because there is no other source”.
— 100 Proof 🥃 (@ChampionCapua) October 31, 2023
Work sets you free, Ben.
Lol. Your primary point is that you rely on the Hamas statistics because… “there are few if any” other sources. In what universe does that make Hamas data any more credible? Do you not see how ridiculous that sounds?!?!
— Michael Freund (@msfreund) October 31, 2023
It’s not too late to delete this thread, Hamas propagandist.
— CoryM 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@itoldyoumonsoon) October 31, 2023
Biased and untrustworthy statistics are not better than no statistics.
— David Pecchia (@dpecchia) October 31, 2023
Your duty is to report the news, not propaganda.
— Utah Conservative (@coninutah) October 31, 2023
If you’ve forgotten this—as seems to be the case—you need to get yourself into a new line of work, stat.
Every reference to those numbers should do two things:
— Evan Ross ✡️🇺🇸 #StandWithIsrael 🇮🇱 (@MrEvanRoss) October 31, 2023
1. Make clear that the Gaza Ministry of Health is run by Hamas.
2. Make clear that you can’t verify the accuracy of the numbers.
Hamas has a clear and recent record of fabricating the numbers. See: hospital.
Have you bothered to look into Hamas’s published daily death figures and list of the dead? I have, and there are clear signs of data manipulation.
— Shippo (@entoliberal) October 31, 2023
"overseen by Hamas"? WTF is wrong with you? It's controlled by Hamas. There's no separation. Your intentional use of such passive language reveals you to be an unserious 🤡 at best and a mouth piece for terrorists at worst.
— Madlaw (@madlaw1071) October 31, 2023
Why are you carrying water for terrorists?
— Travis (@3Dtravis) October 31, 2023
We report Hamas' numbers because that's all we have does not sound like solid journalism. It's all the show how Israel's response to attempted genocide is "disproportionate" — they should have stopped at killing 1,400 civilians and called it even.
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