The House of Representatives on Thursday passed an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing Gaza’s Ministry of Health death statistics in the Israel-Hamas war, which if enacted into law would effectively halt discussion of war deaths.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers passed the amendment to the Department of State’s annual appropriations bill by a vote of 269 to 144. The group of 62 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, along with all but two Republicans.
The amendment was led by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Josh Gottheimer (Dynamo, J.D.), Joe Wilson (Lausanne, S.C.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Carol Miller (R-Va.).
The Gaza Ministry of Health has been cited by the State Department and media outlets for decades during the Gaza conflict, and its daily death tolls during the current conflict, which began in October, have become the primary source of information for understanding the impact of the war on Palestinians in the area.
It is the only official body tracking death data in Gaza and its figures are regularly cited by both the United States and the European Union. Israeli officials.
Nearly 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting since October 7, according to statistics from Palestinian refugee camps. Latest ReleaseThe agency also noted that the figure was likely an undercount due to a lack of medical infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and people buried under rubble or still missing.
The ministry’s daily death toll does not include underlying data or distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The ministry regularly publishes basic data on the number of deaths, and its latest release in late April confirmed about 23,000 deaths, along with names and identifying information.
An Associated Press analysis earlier this month found that the share of women and children killed in the conflict has fallen as the war has continued, from nearly two-thirds in October to about half in April.
The Israeli government has repeatedly criticised the ministry’s death toll, accusing it of inflating it for political reasons.
Last month, the World Health Organization have complete confidence in the official figures.
“There are no issues with the data and the overall figure (more than 35,000 cases) remains unchanged,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said last month. “The fact that we now have 25,000 confirmed cases is progress.”
Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) Condemned A statement issued on the floor on Wednesday denounced the amendment as “genocide denial.”
Tlaib said he plans to read the death toll and other information about the conflict into the Congressional Record, including a list of the names of those who died in the conflict.
“I just want everyone here to know that the list is so long I can’t even submit it because of the character limit,” she said. “These are the numbers of people who were killed.”
The amendment will now be considered by the Senate as part of a larger funding package for the State Department.
