Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have voted to bar the State Department from using death toll figures provided by the Gaza Health Ministry in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
The amendment was approved by the House with a vote of 266-144, with 24 members abstaining. Only two Republicans opposed the measure, while 142 Democrats joined in supporting it.
This amendment, attached to a State Department appropriations bill, would prevent the federal agency from using the primary source for Palestinian casualty figures in the conflict, which has lasted eight months.
News organizations have relied on the Gaza Health Ministry, also known as the Palestinian Ministry of Health, for daily casualty statistics during the war.
As of Thursday, the ministry reported that 37,765 Palestinians have been killed and 86,429 injured since the conflict began.
Israel has consistently questioned the accuracy of these figures, although the United Nations has endorsed the numbers and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs cites them on its website.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., was one of the Democrats who opposed the amendment.
From the floor on Thursday, she argued that although other sources for this information would be preferable, the ministry is often the sole official source for what is happening on the ground in Gaza.
“Israel has sealed Gaza’s borders, barring foreign journalists and others who could offer this reporting,” she said, adding that the ministry has the support of the United Nations and other institutions and experts that it is making “a good faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions.”
“This amendment would severely inhibit the United States government’s ability to assess the situation,” she said, urging her colleagues to vote against the amendment.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., a co-author of the amendment, defended the measure, arguing that relying on figures from a ministry controlled by Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group, is problematic.
“There are better ways to do this,” he said. “I just believe that the United States should stop relying on a terrorist organization for this information. Remember, it is Hamas’ goal to sell propaganda to the American people, to sell propaganda to the world.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian member of the House, condemned the amendment as “unconscionable.”
“Today, we are witnessing the Israeli apartheid government carry out a genocide in Gaza in real time and this amendment is an attempt to hide it,” she said.
“Where is our shared humanity in this chamber? There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don’t even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all — not when they’re alive and now, not even when they are dead.
“It is absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial.”
{CB Frommer – Matzav.com}
