At a press conference on October 25, PBS Newshour reporter Laura Barrón-López asked US President Joe Biden a stark question. More than 6,000 Palestinian deaths had been reported in Gaza since October 7, she said. Did this suggest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ignoring Biden’s message to avoid civilian deaths?

In his response, Biden questioned whether the fatality numbers, which came from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, accurately captured the reality on the ground. “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” he said.

Biden’s remarks were met with intense anger by some commentators who found them overly dismissive of death and suffering; others noted Biden’s own administration has been relying on those figures internally throughout and before the conflict.

Two days later, in an unusual move this early in a conflict and seemingly in response to Biden’s remarks, Gaza’s Ministry of Health released a list containing the names and identity numbers of the nearly 7,000 people it says have died in the conflict so far.