US House votes to block State Department to use Gaza Health Ministry statistics

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US House of Representatives passed an amendment Thursday to prevent the State Department from disclosing death toll numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry.

Lawmakers voted 269 - 144, with 62 Democrats joining 207 Republicans to add an amendment mandating the change to an appropriations bill for the agency not to cite statistics obtained from the Gaza Health Ministry.

The bill needs to pass the Senate.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress, told the House it is "disgusting" that lawmakers would support the legislation.

"This is genocide denial,” she said. "My colleagues want to prohibit our own US officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll. So let me read it into the record. Here are the latest casualties of Palestinians killed: 37,718 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 Palestinian children and more than 86,377 Palestinians have been injured," said Tlaib, citing Gaza Health Ministry’s figures supported by the names of the deceased and tallies by international groups.

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group, Hamas.

More than 37,700 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 86,400 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.