Talk:Gaza Health Ministry

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Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 January 2025

"Please change "It operates under the jurisdiction of the territory's Hamas government, which is independent of the Palestinian National Authority, and was headquartered in Gaza City before the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war in October 2023." to "It operates under the jurisdiction of the territory's Hamas government, which is independent of the Palestinian National Authority, and was headquartered in Gaza City before the outbreak of the Israeli–Hamas war in October 2023. Nonetheless, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank retains power over health and education services in Gaza, even though it's based in the occupied West Bank. The health minister in Ramallah oversees the parallel ministries in Gaza and West Bank, which receive the same data from hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh of the West Bank echoed this during an October 2023 interview with Al Jazeera when he expressed frustration over attempts by others to question Gaza casualty figures, noting, "There are certain leaders who don’t want to see reality. They only want to see what is happening on the Israeli side; they don't want to see what is happening on the Palestinian side. So, therefore, the numbers are correct. They are our numbers. These numbers are fed to us from the hospitals of Gaza every single day that are received by our Ministry of Health."

The Ramallah Health Ministry still provides medical equipment to Gaza, pays Health Ministry salaries, and handles patient transfers from the blockaded enclave to Israeli hospitals, and the health minister's deputy is based in Gaza. Henceforth, the Gaza Health Ministry is a mix of recent Hamas hires and older civil servants affiliated with the secular nationalist Fatah party. Ahmed al-Kahlot, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, put it this way: “Hamas is one of the factions. Some of us are aligned with Fatah, some are independent. More than anything, we are medical professionals." " Lamin Muh G (talk) 16:34, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

We don't know how much *power* they have, so let's stick to what sources say. I've added some information to the lede. Shtayyeh's comments regarding the casualty count should be in the Casualty reports subsection. Alaexis_¿question? 21:04, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The segment I posted earlier, stating, "The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank retains power over health and education services in Gaza, even though it's based in the occupied West Bank. The health minister in Ramallah oversees the parallel ministries in Gaza and West Bank, which receive the same data from hospitals in the Gaza Strip," comes from a source! I quoted AP News nearly word for word, and cited the link associated with it.

If it is not too much trouble, I'd just mildly edit my earlier request for change.

"Please change ""Nonetheless, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank retains power over health and education services in Gaza, even though it's based in the occupied West Bank. The health minister in Ramallah oversees the parallel ministries in Gaza and West Bank, which receive the same data from hospitals in the Gaza Strip" to "Nonetheless, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank retains power over health and education services in Gaza, even though it's based in the occupied West Bank. The health minister in Ramallah oversees the parallel ministries in Gaza and West Bank, which receive the same data from hospitals in the Gaza Strip. " Lamin Muh G (talk) 08:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I quoted Mohammad Shtayyeh not because of the "accuracy" issues surrounding the Gaza Health Ministry's casualty figures per se but to highlight his confirmation that the Gaza Health Ministry is not "controlled by Hamas," as mainstream media networks often claim. In the quote, Shtayyeh confirms that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — not Hamas — funds the Gaza Health Ministry and has representatives working at the ministry! In other words, quoting Shtayyeh had nothing to do with the accuracy or inaccuracy of the Gaza Health Ministry's casualty figures. On the contrary, I intended to use him as a primary and credible source to refute the claim that Hamas "controls" the Gaza Health Ministry. I hope my intentions are now more transparent; if not, please ask for clarification. Lamin Muh G (talk) 04:04, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes. This is written in an extremely biased and deliberate manner. You would not say "Government of [current party]" for any other country, would you? Is the Israeli health ministry under the justification of "the government of Likud"? Would it even be mentioned in the article in the first paragraph? Or in the infobox? If someone changed the Chinese Health Ministry's infobox to say "under the jurisdiction of the CCP government" that would indicate a ridiculously huge bias. It's not an issue of "how much power the Islamic Resistance has" if this is done for other countries with significantly more entrenched one-party systems. Miyika .₊̣̇.ಇ/ᐠ｡ᆽ｡ᐟ \ 16:51, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

It does look like WP:OR, the source does not go on about the Hamas government being independent of the Palestinian one, the policy sayd "Articles must not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not clearly stated by the sources themselves.". The sources above provide a much more nuanced picture. I'll move all that stuff to under history for the moment - it doesn't even describe something that the article goes into, and see about adding the source above. NadVolum (talk) 23:11, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

The History section seems to cover things already. And at the very least if something is to be added back to the lead it should be thrashed out in the history section first. NadVolum (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

agree. best to keep lede short and concise User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 23:50, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

References

Phrasing

The phrasing "concluded the GHM underestimated deaths" reads more as a criticism of GHM, rather than an endorsement of its reliability at the minimum number of casualties, and an emphasis that extra numbers are due to reporting challenges because of the war. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

I've replaced with undercounted since they're counting not estimating. NadVolum (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

In Mathodology, paragraph 4, please add reference to "central information system" form

This form is used by G-MOH to count the

16,610 of whom are registered through the central information system, while more than 10,291 martyrs were monitored according to reliable media sources due to the interruption of communication with hospitals in Gaza and the north

part of their death reports Refael Ackermann (talk) 19:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

 Not done - unclear what the edit request is here, are reliable sources discussing this? Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:37, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Please add reference to backtracking on women&children estimates

Either in the lede or in the credibility section, the events of May 14th 2024 must be mentioned. The UN secretary general acknowledged that up till that point, the UN has been citing spurious demographics of the casualties. On that day GMO quietly back-counted actual statistics of war casualties and had to cut proportion of Women and Children (typically a reliable proxy to non-combatants demographics) in half. The new demographic in agreement with the IDF's very conservative estimate of 1:1 combatants to civilians.

• https://press.un.org/en/2024/db240513.doc.htm#:~:text=Out%20of%20those%20then%2C%20out%20of%20that%20smaller%20number%2C%20that%20subset%20of%20identified%20bodies%2C%20you%20have%207%2C797%C2%A0children%2C%204%2C959%C2%A0women%2C%201%2C924%C2%A0elderly%20and%2010%2C006%C2%A0men
• https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-165
• https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-halves-its-estimate-women-and-children-killed-gaza
• https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-ratio-of-hamas-combatants-to-gazan-civilians-killed-in-ongoing-war-is-about-11/

Refael Ackermann (talk) 19:35, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

 Not done - aside from being an inaccurate reading of that UN press conference, which says that the numbers themselves haven't changed, the UN itself says this is incorrect, please see here. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:35, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 18 April 2025

Description of suggested change:

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Mbinyamina (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Its numbers have historically been considered reliable by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and Human Rights Watch.[1][2][3] 

Cite 3

says the exact OPPOSITE

Click on source three and you will see that the numbers CANNOT be confirmed by the UN, WHO or Human Rights Watch.

Cite 1 and 2 - Al Jazeera is NOT a reliable source.

Please change this error

Not done. Citation 3 says "Many experts consider figures provided by the ministry reliable, given its access, sources and accuracy in past statements."

And Al Jazeera is considered a reliable source on Wikipedia per community consensus.

-IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 16:25, 18 April 2025 (UTC)