During a Sunday interview, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the Biden administration does not trust “the numbers of casualties” being reported out of Gaza amid Israel’s ongoing effort to eliminate Hamas terrorists from the area.
After Hamas terrorists massacred 1,400 Israelis, most of whom were civilians, on October 7, Israel declared war on the terrorist group and began striking at targets within the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have made significant efforts to avoid civilian casualties, even warning Gazans to evacuate ahead of bombings. Hamas, on the other hand, has tried to prevent these evacuations, openly admitting that they want civilian casualties in order to rally more support for their cause.
IN HIS OWN WORDS: Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh, from the comfort of his home in Qatar: "We need the blood of women, children, and the elderly of #Gaza… so as to awaken our revolutionary spirit."
Listen to this vile terrorist scum sacrifice his own people, while living in the… pic.twitter.com/GL7ZTfa5Dw
— Embassy of Israel to the USA | #IsraelUSA75 (@IsraelinUSA) October 27, 2023
As pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas activists within the U.S. and around the world continue to parrot the death counts being reported out of Gaza by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, many are skeptical about the true statistics — as “Hamas has instructed Gazans to describe anyone killed as a civilian,” according to a previous report from Time Magazine.
“The demographic analysis of the fatalities in the Gaza conflict has limitations. It can’t identify who is or isn’t a combatant,” the report read. “But the spike in fatalities among males starting in their late teens and peaking in their early to mid-twenties, and the divergence of the pattern of fatalities from the demographic pattern of the population, raises considerable doubt about claims that as many as 75% or more of the fatalities are non-combatants.”
Speaking with host Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Sullivan confirmed that the U.S. is wary of the casualty numbers coming out of Gaza — while also confirming that Hamas has been purposely using hospitals and other civilian infrastructure as shields against strikes from the IDF.
“Without getting into intelligence information, we can just look at the open-source reporting that Hamas is using hospitals, as it uses many other civilian facilities, for command and control, for weapons storage, to house its fighters,” the national security adviser said. “And this is a violation of the laws of war.”
Sullivan explained that IDF officials have said they are taking every measure possible to minimize civilian casualties while striking Hamas targets — noting that the terrorist group has a “track record” of committing war crimes by using human shields.
Brennan then asked about the casualty numbers being reported out of Gaza.
Sullivan confirmed that the U.S. doesn’t trust those numbers, stating: “We don’t have fidelity on the numbers of casualties, fatalities in Gaza. We don’t know how many are fighters and how many are innocent civilians.”
