A nonpartisan watchdog group sent a letter to top Pentagon officials this week requesting all information that led to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin‘s recent public claim that “over 25,000” Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 — a figure based on data supplied by the Hamas militant group.
In the letter, Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) Director James Fitzpatrick questions whether publicly reciting those numbers — which the Pentagon later admitted came from Hamas data, and which can’t be independently confirmed by U.S. analysts — may have aided the group the U.S. and Israel consider a terrorist organization in pushing its public narrative that Israel is indiscriminately murdering scores of innocent civilians in Gaza.
The Pentagon quickly clarified Mr. Austin‘s Feb. 29 comments before the House Armed Services Committee and acknowledged that the 25,000 number has not been independently confirmed. Officials also said the figure applied to all Palestinians, not just women and children, as Mr. Austin originally stated.
But Mr. Fitzpatrick argues there are still significant questions that must be answered about those numbers, including whether the Pentagon has any other internal data or intelligence estimates on the civilian casualty count in Gaza.
“The Center to Advance Security in America is formally requesting that all relevant information used by the DoD to support its recent statements concerning the Palestinian death toll be made public. Doing so would restore confidence that Secretary Austin and senior DoD officials have not used taxpayer resources and their positions of authority to advance disinformation originating from a terrorist organization and its likely nation-state affiliates,” he wrote in the letter.
The Washington Times is the first media outlet to report on the letter, which was delivered to Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, and the Defense Department’s inspector general on Tuesday.
Read more here from the Washington Times.
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