There is an across-the-board, coordinated line emanating from the White House to other branches of the U.S. government that Palestinians are lying about the number of people killed by Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza. At yesterday’s White House briefing, when asked about the statistics released by the Gaza Health Ministry, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby flippantly replied, “well, we all know that the Gazan Ministry of Health is just a front for Hamas. It’s a—it’s run by Hamas, a terrorist organization. I’ve said it myself up here: We can’t take anything coming out of Hamas, including the so-called Ministry of Health, at face value.”
At yesterday’s State Department briefing, spokesman Matt Miller responded to a similar question with this: “But it is true that all of the numbers that are provided publicly are provided ultimately by Hamas, and so, given the way that Hamas has misled the public—most recently with respect to the explosion at the hospital last week that they claimed was an Israeli airstrike when our assessment is that is not accurate, and we have released information about that; the Israeli government has released information about that—we don’t trust Hamas.”
