Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Collins of Highbury on 26 March (HL5769), what assessment they have made of the implications for the reliability of the death statistics of the Gazan Ministry of Health reportedly removing from their March figures 3,400 deaths which it had previously listed in August and October 2024, including 1080 children.

We are aware of a correction to the Gaza Ministry of Health's (MoH) data after a number of deaths were incorrectly reported. Producing reliable casualty statistics in contexts of violent conflict is often difficult. For example, prior to October 7th 2023, the MoH collected mortality figures from 8 sentinel hospitals across Gaza. Unfortunately, many of these hospitals were struck in the conflict and the capacity to collect the data was reduced. After consulting experts, we believe the MoH data to be largely accurate. Some experts have reached the view that the MoH may have underestimated the numbers of injured and dead.