Every day, headlines and wire stories carry the same refrain: “The Gaza Health Ministry reports …” Casualty counts now surpassing 67,000 are repeated across AP, Reuters, AFP, the BBC, the New York Times, and countless others. The phrasing has become so routine it barely registers. But the choice of words — and the system behind them — deserves scrutiny.
Why not simply write “Hamas says …”? Because readers would treat the reporting with skepticism. The Health Ministry is Hamas-run, but invoking it in headlines drapes the figures in lab coats and filing cabinets, not rifles and ideology. “Ministry” sounds bureaucratic, technocratic, even medical. That difference in wording is the difference between statistics being accepted as data and dismissed as propaganda.
This is not accidental. It is a deliberate choice designed to deceive audiences about who is actually providing the information.
The Gaza case is simply the most visible current example. This same deceptive practice operates in American political reporting, European coverage of domestic conflicts, and anywhere journalists rely on access to sources who control information. The bureaucratic titles and institutional names change, but the function remains identical: obscure the political source, confer bureaucratic legitimacy, make readers accept what they would otherwise question.
The Machinery of Numbers
Here’s how the process works:
The Gaza Health Ministry, run by Hamas, releases casualty figures.
The United Nations cites those same numbers in its humanitarian briefings, usually with the formula: “According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza …”
Wire services like AP and Reuters circulate the figures worldwide.
Major newspapers and broadcasters reprint them for international audiences.
By the time the number reaches readers, it has acquired an institutional halo. It is no longer “Hamas says” but “the UN reports”. Yet at the source, it is still a Hamas-run bureaucracy, publishing figures that cannot be independently verified and that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
This transformation — from Hamas to “Health Ministry” to UN to wire services to your newspaper — is designed to make readers accept information they would otherwise reject. The machinery exists to launder the source.
Access Journalism’s Bind
Reporters face an impossible dilemma. Independent access to Gaza has been severely restricted since October 2023, with only occasional escorted visits allowed. Independent verification of casualty figures is close to impossible. To refuse to cite the Health Ministry would leave journalists with no numbers at all. To label them bluntly as “Hamas claims” would risk what little access remains.
This is the classic trap that I write about in my op-ed Access Journalism: to maintain the ability to report, journalists must accept the terms set by those who control access.
Hamas understands this. If journalists flatly disregarded or undermined the Ministry’s figures, they would almost certainly be cut off. The price of access is playing the game.
But this is not unique to Gaza. The same pattern plays out in Washington, London, Brussels, and every capital where journalists depend on official sources. “Senior White House officials say …” means unnamed political operatives are spinning you. “Intelligence sources confirm …” means agencies are selectively leaking. The mechanics are identical: obscure the political actor, create bureaucratic distance, make the information seem authoritative rather than interested.
The Role of the UN
The UN provides another layer of legitimacy — and another layer of deception. I wrote about this in my substack What the UN Is — and What It Is Not. It is not an independent, neutral arbiter above politics. It is a collection of member states with competing interests, where information flows through politically contested bureaucracies.
By repeating the Health Ministry’s tallies in its own reports, the UN gives the numbers institutional blessing. For global outlets, this is crucial. They can write: “The UN says …” rather than “Hamas says …” Readers accept the UN as neutral, even if the UN is simply relaying the same Gaza Health Ministry data.
This process launders politically fraught statistics into the international system. What began as Hamas figures becomes UN-cited, wire-distributed, newspaper-reprinted fact. The UN may add disclaimers in footnotes, but the headline number carries its imprimatur. Readers see “UN reports” and believe they’re getting independent verification. They’re not.
The Neutral-Sounding Humanitarian Complex
The UN is not alone in providing this laundering service. A constellation of international organizations with humanitarian or human rights missions serve the same function. Their names sound neutral, scientific, medical, or legal. That’s precisely the point.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) — the name conjures lab coats and emergency rooms, not political positions. Yet the organization regularly takes stances on immigration policy, military conflicts, and government actions. When “MSF reports …” appears in a headline, readers assume medical expertise and humanitarian neutrality. They rarely consider the organization’s advocacy positions.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch — their mandates sound objective: document human rights violations. But both organizations face persistent accusations of selective focus, disproportionate attention to certain conflicts while ignoring others, and political bias in how they frame identical actions by different governments. “Amnesty reports …” or “HRW confirms …” carries the weight of human rights expertise. The political choices embedded in what to investigate, how to describe it, and when to release findings — those disappear behind the institutional name.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, has been accused of political bias for decades. Yet “UNRWA officials say …” sounds like neutral humanitarian bureaucracy, not a politically contested organization with its own institutional interests.
The International Criminal Court — sounds like blind justice, international law, neutral adjudication. Yet the court has faced persistent criticism about selective prosecution. Since 2023 it has expanded its docket to include warrants for Vladimir Putin and requests for both Hamas and Israeli leaders, but the pattern of which cases reach prosecution versus which remain at preliminary examination continues to draw scrutiny. “ICC prosecutors allege …” carries legal authority. The questions about prosecutorial selectivity — those don’t make the headlines.
The International Committee of the Red Cross cultivates an image of absolute neutrality. But even the ICRC faces criticism for silence on certain atrocities and vocal condemnation of others. When they do speak, “The Red Cross reports …” sounds unimpeachably neutral.
The pattern is consistent: organizations with political interests and advocacy positions present themselves — and are presented by media — as neutral arbiters. The institutional names do the work. Readers see “humanitarian agency,” “human rights organization,” “international body” and assume objectivity. They’re getting political actors with particular worldviews, funding sources, and institutional biases.
What one observer calls principled humanitarian advocacy, another calls political interference. But readers never get that choice — because the language is designed to foreclose skepticism before it begins.
What Readers Should Remember
When you see the line “The Gaza Health Ministry reports …” — or “officials say …” or “sources confirm …” or “authorities report …” — understand what is happening:
The source is politically interested, but the language obscures this deliberately.
Institutions like the UN repeat it, providing cover for questionable sources.
Wire services redistribute it because the alternative is no coverage.
Newspapers publish it knowing most readers won’t recognize the source.
The phrasing is specifically chosen to prevent readers from questioning it.
You have no independent way to verify the information.
This is deception by language. The information may be accurate or wildly wrong — you have no way to know. But you are definitely reading interested parties’ claims, packaged to look like something else.
Conclusion
This is not about Gaza. It is about how journalism works — everywhere. The language of reporting — “The Health Ministry reports …” “officials say …” “authorities confirm …” — is designed to deceive. It obscures the source while maintaining plausible deniability. It allows news organizations to cite politically interested parties while pretending they are citing neutral bureaucracies.
This happens in American reporting. It happens in European reporting. It happens wherever journalists need access to sources who control information. The Gaza case is merely the most obvious current example of a universal practice.
Readers think they’re getting neutral institutional data. They’re getting the figures that powerful actors want them to have. The language is deliberately chosen to hide that fact. This is not journalism adapting to difficult circumstances — it is journalism actively participating in deception.
You can decide for yourself what that means. But at least know what you’re reading.