Israel releases new Gaza civilian death toll, says Hamas’ numbers are ‘fake and fabricated’

Israel for the first time has released its estimated civilian death toll in Gaza, saying that 16,000 have been killed in the war that began on Oct. 7 instead of the approximately 35,000 that the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas' Ministry of Health is claiming. 

Israel government spokesperson Avi Hyman tells Fox News that for 221 days, his country has been "condemned globally because of a fake and fabricated civilian death toll created and disseminated by Hamas.  

"The United Nations has rubber-stamped these Hamas numbers and become a Hamas newswire to the world," he said. "In reality, Israel is setting the new gold standard for urban warfare with what appears to be the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratios in history." 

On Monday, Hyman, citing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a video that "we believe we have killed in excess of 14,000 terrorists and sadly around 16,000 civilians" inside the Gaza Strip. 

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People move past destroyed buildings along a street in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, May 14. (AFP/Getty Images)

"We would expect everyone to now take these figures as a genuine estimate from a free democratic country that fights in strict accordance with the laws of armed conflict in one of the most challenging urban warfare scenarios in history," he added. "Let me make it clear, every civilian casualty is a tragedy. That would not have happened if Hamas hadn’t insisted on using their own people as human shields." 

Hyman also said the figures coming from Hamas "spits in the face of our brave heroes who have paid the ultimate price to fight this just and moral war." 

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An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from southern Israel towards the Gaza Strip in December 2023. (AP/Ohad Zwigenberg)

The Israeli Defense Forces’ own losses in the conflict have risen to 620, he said. 

Israel’s new estimates come after the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revised its data pertaining to the number of women and children who have died in the war. 

Smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes on the Jabalia region in the Gaza Strip on Monday, May 13. (Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

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However, the World Health Organization on Tuesday said there is "nothing wrong" with the numbers being provided by the Hamas-led Gaza Ministry of Health, according to Reuters.