Gaza Health Ministry

Gaza Health Ministry
The Gaza Health Ministry is a government agency in the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories.
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."
The current director-general of the Gaza Health Ministry is Medhat Abbas.
Reliability of casualty counts
As of 26 October 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry was the sole official source of data on Palestinian casualties in Gaza during the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, although these numbers are also published by the West Bank-based Palestinian health ministry, which confirms them with its Gaza-based staff. Following heavily disputed initial casualty reports made in the immediate aftermath of the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, the Ministry was subjected to accusations of inflating casualty figures.
Former Reuters regional bureau chief Luke Baker said that the Ministry's death tolls are no longer trustworthy and "any health official stepping out of line and not giving the death tolls that Hamas wants reported to journalists risks serious consequences." Yet, other sources argue that Gaza's Health Ministry also includes officials from the secular Fatah party and independents.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, without citing specific evidence, later accused the Ministry of spreading "propaganda", while US President Joe Biden stated he had "no confidence" in the casualty numbers being reported. When asked what evidence supported Biden's comments, the White House referred to subsequent comments made by National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who asserted that the death toll cannot be taken "at face value", and that the "Gaza Ministry of Health is just a front for Hamas."
In response to these accusations, the Gaza Health Ministry 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. Commentators pointed out that Gaza 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. 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.
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."
List of ministers of health
References
External links
Health Ministry news feed (including casualty lists)
2007 establishments in the Palestinian territories
Health Ministers of Palestine
Health ministries
Palestinian ministries