I think we can safely say that the man is a liar, and will say the most ludicrous statements in the service of Hamas.
Now, guess what job her had from 2007-2012?
Basem Naim was Gaza's health minister!
It is quite obvious that this position is simply meant to act as a terrorist mouthpiece.
Yet the New York Times just published an analysis of civilian casualties based on the fake numbers that the Gaza health ministry issues.
They defend it by saying "International officials and experts familiar with the way figures are compiled by health officials in Gaza say the overall numbers are generally reliable."
But they are relying on outdated information.
In previous Gaza wars, there were independent NGOs in Gaza who also did their own counts of casualties. While their statistics of how many civilians were killed were quite skewed - they counted most terrorists as civilian - organizations like PCHR and Al Mezan were independent sources that kept the health ministry honest.
That is not the case this time. The NGOs gave up on trying to count casualties by day 5 because it was too dangerous for them, and since then, Hamas has owned all the information on casualties.
So, for example, when the Al Ahli hospital was bombed by an errant Islamic Jihad rocket, the ministry claimed 471 dead, even though no expert that looked at the damage accepted anything close to that number. But that was the only "official" number and the number of dead counted by the MoH increased by more than 500 on October 17.
Hamas knows that dead Gazans are a huge advantage for its PR efforts, and it has every incentive to exaggerate those numbers.
The health ministry is lying, because it can get away with it.
No one has the information to contradict them. So they can lie with impunity, just as Hamas spokespeople lie about everything else - like destroying dozens of Israeli tanks.
Or denying that they killed any civilians on October 7.
