The United Nations has seemingly revised the estimated number of women and children it believes have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s war on Hamas, blaming the “fog of war” for the mistake.
In a graphic featured within OCHA’s recent daily briefing on May 6th, it was claimed that approximately 9,500 women had lost their lives in the ongoing conflict. The organization also cited data sourced from the Hamas-administered Ministry of Health in Gaza asserting that since hostilities began last October, roughly 14,500 children had been killed.
Yet just two days later, the U.N. agency appeared to revise these figures significantly downward in its subsequent report. The updated data indicated that approximately 4,959 women and 7,797 children had lost their lives.
The conflict erupted following a brutal attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel from Gaza, resulting in the deaths of over 1,200 individuals, predominantly civilians, and the taking of approximately 240 individuals as hostages.
A reporter from the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) asked the U.N. about the revision, with the spokesperson blaming the “fog of war” for the errors.
“The revisions are taken … you know, of course, in the fog of war, it’s difficult to come up with numbers,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, said at a press conference last Friday.
“We get numbers from different sources on the ground, and then we try to cross check them. As we cross check them, we update the numbers, and we’ll continue to do that as that progresses.”
Hellbound and Down 