As recently as March, the Associated Press reports, the Gaza Health Ministry claimed over several days that 72% of the dead in the conflict were women and children. But an independent review of the numbers reveals the real number was around 40% – still tragic, but remarkable since Hamas has been using women and children as human shields.
Tim Graham of Media Research Center points out that until about three weeks ago, the AP and other legacy media outlets were simply parroting Hamas numbers. "It is so commonplace for them to simply suggest that they got their casualty counts from a 'health agency' and not a terrorist group," Graham tells AFN.
It was three weeks ago that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs revised its data on Palestinian casualties in the Gaza war, reducing the number of women and children killed by almost half. The AP has been more realistic with the count since then, notes Graham.
"Well, it should always be welcomed when the Associated Press decides it's not going to simply accept the numbers of a terrorist group," he adds.
He says the Biden administration had been parroting the Hamas numbers as well, giving life to its genocide narrative – which is now much less marketable.
"The president has been constrained because a large chunk of his Democratic Party base is pro-Hamas. That is embarrassing," says the MRC spokesman. "That's embarrassing for Biden, and it's embarrassing for the pro-Biden press."
In like fashion, Lela Gilbert of Family Research Council says the new numbers may be inconvenient for the Biden administration, which she argues was hoping higher numbers could help pressure Israel to declare a cease fire.
Dems trying to 'clean house' pre-election
"[The Democrats are] looking at the election that's coming up," Gilbert explains. "They want this war out of the way … they want to clean house and just get everything in order before the election gets to be focused upon by everyone."
And she finds irony in the argument that the Israel-Hamas war might have been done and Hamas eradicated by now if the Biden administration hadn't been so meddlesome.
"Israel has no interest in staying at war for all these months and months, but they had to slow down, they had to change their plans, they had to move around," she points out. "… I think they would have been much more efficient and probably had less casualties [had the Biden administration not interfered]."
But Gilbert contends Biden was swayed by his far-left pro-Hamas wing. "At first it seemed like Biden was taking the right position after the horrors of October 7. But then he started seeming to turn around and become hostile, actually, in recent weeks."
And like Graham, Gilbert detects the influence of a left-leaning mainstream media. "A lot of the news agencies are very anti-Israel," she laments. "You always see them focus on anything they can find that Israel might have done or misdone."
