While US President Joe Biden has casted doubt on the accuracy of the Palestinian death toll resulting from Israeli strikes, HuffPost has found that US officials have cited figures from the same source in multiple reports.

A Huffpost review of nearly 20 State Department “situation reports” on the Israel-Hamas escalation found “at least 12 instances” of US officials attributing the number of Palestinian casualties to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Such reports “represent US assessments from the ground that are intended to inform policy discussions and decision-making in Washington”, it stated.

According to Huffpost, in an Oct 21 report that questioned the accuracy of figures from the Gaza ministry, the “American official drafting the note wrote of the number of Gazans killed or injured the previous day: ‘The numbers are likely much higher, according to the UN and NGOs reporting on the situation.’”