Palestinian Ministry of Health (Gaza Strip)
Agency overview
JurisdictionGaza Strip
HeadquartersGaza City
Agency executive
Parent agencyHamas Authority

The Gaza Health Ministry is the government agency responsible for healthcare and medical services in the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories. It operates under the administration of the Hamas authority that has run the territory since 2007.

The ministry is known internationally for its casualty reports produced during wars (such as the 2014 Gaza war and the 2023 Israel-Hamas war) where it is often one of the only sources for such information.

History

The Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) used to be served by a single government ministry of health. Following Hamas' takeover of Gaza in 2007, the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip has appointed its own alternate health ministers than those in the West Bank.

Following the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, a month-long doctors' strike ensued due to political disputes. The new Gaza government, with Basem Naim as Health Minister, replaced Fatah-affiliated hospital directors and staff with Hamas loyalists. Jomaa Alsaqqa, a 20-year surgeon at al-Shifa Hospital, lost his job due to his Fatah support and faced arrests and assaults since the Hamas takeover. In response, Naim stated "the hospital managers weren't fired for political reasons: they were fired because of managerial, financial, and moral corruption in the hospitals."[1]

The current director-general of the Gaza Health Ministry is Medhat Abbas.[2]

On November 17, amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, the head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Palestine stated the Gaza Health Ministry had been "decimated", and Gaza's health sector had been "systematically destroyed".[3]

Casualty counts

Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) fatality reportage deviation 2008–2021.[4]
ConflictAccording to GHMAccording to the UNDeviation
Gaza War (2008–2009)1,4401,3854.0%
2014 Gaza War2,3102,2512.6%
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis2602561.6%

As of 26 October 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) was the sole official source of data on Palestinian casualties in Gaza during the 2023 Israel-Hamas war,[5] although these numbers are also published by the West Bank-based Palestinian health ministry, which confirms them with its Gaza-based staff.[4] The health ministry's numbers have historically been considered reliable by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, Human Rights Watch, and the United States Department of State.[6][7][8]

The casualty figures provided by the ministry do not distinguish the difference between civilians and combatants or provide the cause of death. The percentage of civilian deaths is only calculated post-conflict by the UN and various rights groups.[9]

Following heavily disputed initial casualty reports made in the immediate aftermath of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, the GHM was subjected to accusations of inflating casualty figures.[10] Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, without citing specific evidence, later accused the GHM of spreading "propaganda",[10] while US President Joe Biden stated he had "no confidence" in the casualty numbers being reported.[11][12] Subsequently, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby asserted that the death toll cannot be taken "at face value", and that the "Gaza Ministry of Health is just a front for Hamas."[13] According to The New York Times, the Gaza Health Ministry blamed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion on an Israeli airstike, and thus "deliberately told the world a false story."[14]

In response to these accusations, the GHM released a full list of the people killed at the time since October 7, a 200-page document with 6,747 identified individuals listing their names, ages, and ID number as well as 281 unidentified victims. Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said "the numbers coming out of the ministry are not beyond reason", and noted a grey area in differentiating combatants from civilians among the dead, as well as emphasized that immediately released figures may often be different from those ultimately based on recorded data.[15]

Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh has asserted the process of issuing death certificates is not done by political figures, but by health professionals, insisting "this process enables families to deal with issues such as inheritance and custody of children whose parents have died."[13] Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Ahmed al-Kahlot, denied that the GHM was unduly influenced by Hamas' control, stating that “Hamas is one of the factions. Some of us are aligned with Fatah, some are independent." and “More than anything, we are medical professionals.”[16]

On 10 November 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US intelligence community has growing confidence that death toll reports from the Gaza Health Ministry are roughly accurate. The article also reported that despite US officials had growing confidence, they did not have enough information to confirm for sure.[17] On 6 December 2023, a comparative study published in The Lancet based on publicly available mortality reports stated there was no evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Ministry[18] The US Assistant Secretary of State said that actual death toll was most likely even higher than what the GHM reported.[19]

List of ministers of health

# Name Party Time in office
1 Basem Naim[1] Hamas June 2007–January 2009
2 Mufiz al-Makhalalati[20] Hamas April 2009 – unknown
3 Medhat Abbas Hamas Unknown – present

References

  1. 1 2 Merav, Sarig (3 November 2007). "Striking medics in Gaza temporarily return to work after talks with Hamas". BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). National Institutes of Health. 335 (7626): 904–905. doi:10.1136/bmj.39384.458935.DB. PMC 2048866. PMID 17974666.
  2. ↑ Daniel, Ari (13 October 2023). "Doctors in Gaza describe the war's devastating impact on health care — and civilians". NPR. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  3. ↑ Chotiner, Isaac (17 November 2023). "The Trauma of Gaza's Doctors". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
  4. 1 2 Isabel Debre (26 October 2023). "What is Gaza's Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war's death toll?". Associated Press.
  5. ↑ David, Folkenflik. "News outlets backtrack on Gaza blast after relying on Hamas as key source". NPR.
  6. ↑ "UN says Gaza Health Ministry death tolls in previous wars 'credible'". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Harb, Ali. "Gaza death toll from health ministry is 'reliable': Rights expert". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 26 October 2023. Human Rights Watch has been working in the occupied Palestinian territories for three decades. We've covered rounds of escalations and hostilities, and we've always found the numbers from the Ministry of Health to be generally reliable.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Adam (24 October 2023). "Why news outlets and the U.N. rely on Gaza's Health Ministry for death tolls". The Washington Post. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
  9. ↑ "What is Gaza's Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war's death toll?". AP News. 26 October 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2023.
  10. 1 2 "Italian minister disputes death toll of Gaza hospital blast". Reuters. 24 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  11. ↑ "Italian minister disputes death toll of Gaza hospital blast". Reuters. Retrieved 26 October 2023. The Gaza health ministry has put the death toll at 471. An Israeli official has said the toll appeared to be 'several dozen'. A U.S. intelligence report estimated the number of those killed to be 'probably at the low end of the 100 to 300 spectrum'. 'We need to avoid the negative impact of propaganda. Because that missile, which was said to have caused 500 deaths – in reality it was around 50 people – and which inflamed Arab masses in big cities, was not however launched by Israel,' Tajani told the Sky TG24 news channel.
  12. ↑ Dobkin, Rachel. "Biden Accuses Palestinians of Lying About Civilian Death Tolls". Newsweek. Retrieved 26 October 2023. What they say to me is that I have no notion the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many are killed ... I'm sure innocents have been killed and it's the price of waging a war ... The Israelis should be incredibly careful to be sure that they're focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel and it's against their interest when that doesn't happen but I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.
  13. 1 2 "What Experts Say About the Palestinian Death Toll Figures". Time. 26 October 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  14. ↑ "Revisiting the Gaza Hospital Explosion". The New York Times. 3 November 2023. Retrieved 16 November 2023.
  15. ↑ McGreal, Chris (26 October 2023). "Can we trust casualty figures from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry?". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  16. ↑ Isabel Debre (26 October 2023). "What is Gaza's Ministry of Health and how does it calculate the war's death toll?". Associated Press. The ministry is a mix of recent Hamas hires and older civil servants affiliated with the secular nationalist Fatah party, officials say.... 'Hamas is one of the factions. Some of us are aligned with Fatah, some are independent,' said Ahmed al-Kahlot, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. 'More than anything, we are medical professionals.' The Ramallah ministry said it trusts casualty figures from partners in Gaza, and it takes longer to publish figures because it tries to confirm numbers with its own Gaza staff.
  17. ↑ Youssef, Nancy A.; Malsin, Jared; Salama, Vivian. "U.S. Officials Have Growing Confidence in Death Toll Reports From Gaza". WSJ. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  18. ↑ Huynh, Benjamin Q.; Chin, Elizabeth T.; Spiegel, Paul B. (6 December 2023). "No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health". The Lancet. 403 (10421): 23–24. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02713-7. S2CID 265664650. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  19. ↑ "Gaza deaths likely 'higher than is being cited,' says senior US diplomat". www.aa.com.tr. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  20. ↑ "Hamas announces cabinet reshuffle in Gaza". Hürriyet Daily News. 2 September 2012. Retrieved 29 October 2023.
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