Western media is constantly reporting casualty figures from the Gaza ministry of health. However the ministry is fully controlled by Hamas and cannot be considered impartial. So why are the casualty numbers taken at face value rather than being questioned?
I understand why non-Western media happily reports Hamas-sourced numbers but Western media likewise seems to trust the "health ministry".
First of all, I think "taken without a grain of salt" is exaggerating the confidence with which those numbers are reported. Usually, reliable media seems to point out that the numbers have not been independently verified. "Trustworthy enough that that the numbers are worth reporting rather than ignoring" would probably fit better.
When it comes to the question of whether it is better to report only somewhat trustworthy data rather than nothing at all, it is important to note that just as over-reporting inflated casualty numbers might lead to oversized outrage, not reporting on casualties can lead to unjustified apathy. Journalists have to find a balancing act here.
When it comes to the specifics of the situation, the Guardian article linked by James K in the comments addressed them:
While Hamas may or may not be exaggerating, news agencies like the BBC and organizations like the UN also report on casualties affecting their personnel and affiliates, as well as those people's families and it doesn't look all that great there either.
UN is at 101 KIA from its staff so far.
From the hustle and bustle of New York City to the edge of the Karura Forest in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, offices across the global UN system paid tribute on Monday to the 101 staff killed so far during the war raging in Gaza – the largest loss during a conflict in the Organization’s 78-year history.
UN has 10K staff in Gaza so that's a 1% death rate.
The number of area staff range from nearly 3,000 in the Lebanon Field Office to over 10,000 in the Gaza Field Office with the other three Field Offices falling in between those numbers.
So 10K civilian dead out of 2M is not unbelievable. The UN staff may be more exposed, staying to help near combat areas, than civilians in "safe zones". But UN working staff should also be in clearly marked vehicles and buildings.
These stats falls very much in the general ballpark figure where Hamas numbers aren't automatically suspiciously high, no matter the wishful thinking to claim it so at least in the absence of additional information.
Still, I would very much also reason about these numbers on the basis of Arno's answer - take them with caution and keep in mind who issued them.
Quoting the Guardian's article cited in a comment, there is probably one area of contention: who gets counted as civilians vs Hamas in the casualties. Even then they cautioned against too much doubt.
Shakir said a grey area was differentiating combatants from civilians among the dead, but the large proportion of women and children killed was indicative of high civilian casualties.
One last thing to keep in mind when reasoning about casualties wrt children: Gaza has a very unusual age pyramid going on and nearly half of the population is under 18. So their proportions in the overall casualties are going to be different from what you'd expect from a war like that in Ukraine which has proportionally much fewer children. Make of that what you will, but it is a relevant data point.
Nearly half (47.3%) are under 18.
The Washington Post has an article explaining why they - and others - rely on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health numbers[*].
Their main points are:
They also acknowledge that:
They do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization with the goal to destroy Israel and kill all Jews. Instead they are calling it a "militant group". This gives some insight into why organizations are reporting these numbers: They don't see Hamas as the extremist group that it is.
The WP does acknowledge that "accounts sometimes differ". The example they give is the al-Ahli Hospital bombing. According to the WP, Hamas gave casualty numbers as 471 & the US puts them at 100-300.
In fact, it's not just the US that has different numbers. At the time, the Anglican diocese that manages the hospital put it at 200, the director of the hospital at 250. In hindsight, the NYT concluded that the number was closer to 100 and said that Hamas has "deliberately disseminated misleading information to the international community".
That's putting aside that the hospital wasn't actually bombed by Israel, but by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
So we know that Hamas inflates their numbers (in this case by a factor of almost 5). Media still use them as there are no other numbers and they believe that Hamas numbers are accurate.
I've looked at headlines re casualties supposedly reaching 10,000 to see if news organizations are indeed reporting the numbers without a grain of salt.
We can see that only CNN acknowledges in the headline that the numbers ultimately come from Hamas. Some news org report the numbers as if they were facts in their headlines (reuters, al jazeera, NPR, bloomberg), while others qualify them (attributing the numbers to the health ministry). Most give the source in the article itself, though many don't mention Hamas.
[*] I shortened "Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health" to "Hamas" in the rest of my answer.
The Ministry of Health has historically be reasonably accurate with its figures. And when they are backup up by UN figures or those from other NGOs, the burden shifts to demonstrating why they shouldn't be believed.
With that in mind, I often see the opposite stance - immediately retorting with "how can we believe Gaza MoH" figures as an virtual get out of jail free card for what we know is Israel's very broadly targeted bombing campaign of a densely populated area of civilians. Is its MoD not partial too? Independent figures are our best chance of understanding the situation, which means allowing journalists, calling internet access and protecting NGO offices in Gaza.
