U.N. agencies cite Hamas statistics regularly without noting that the numbers come from a terrorist organization, though they are inconsistent in which statistics they use.
Officials at the global agency continue to assert that a Gazan child is killed every 10 minutes—relying on Hamas casualty figures that have been debunked.
“A child is killed every 10 minutes in the Gaza Strip. A deplorable number of children have also been injured amid intense and often indiscriminate attacks,” the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the global body’s Palestinians-only aid and social-services group, wrote on social media on Saturday.
“An immediate ceasefire is the last hope remaining,” UNRWA added.
It is unclear how the agency tabulated that figure, which would mean that some 28,000 children have been killed since Oct. 7—a number that not even Hamas has claimed.
The World Health Organization also claimed that 10 Gazan children were killed every 10 minutes last November. It has been widely reported that there has been a lower level of intensity, and lower death toll, in the war in recent months.
U.N. agencies don’t appear to be consistent in the numbers they use.
Tess Ingram, a U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokeswoman, said during an April 16 press conference in Geneva that one child is “killed or injured every 10 minutes” in the Gaza Strip.
She cited “the most recent data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health,” a Ramallah-based arm of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party, which has no control over Hamas-run Gaza.
JNS sought comment from UNRWA and UNICEF about the statistical discrepancies.
