We cannot take the word of Gaza health authorities, Hamas controls them

Mohammed Salem reports that “local health officials” in Gaza state that more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed there, at least twothirds of them children and women (‘Unborn baby survives as 18 children among 22 killed in Israeli air strikes’, Irish Independent, April 22).

However, the health authorities in Gaza are under the control of Hamas, an internationally recognised Islamist terror group. It makes no distinction between the deaths of its fighters and Gazan civilians.

The UK’s Statistics Authority is now examining how accurate these figures are, given that Hamas itself has reportedly now admitted that it has “incomplete data” on a third of the reported Gazan deaths.

Karl Martin

Bayside, Dublin 13