(NewsNation) — President Biden on Wednesday said he has “no confidence” in the death toll coming out of Gaza from a Hamas-run organization, and acknowledged that the deaths of civilians are part of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus told NewsNation Biden’s skepticism is “fair,” due to prior disinformation campaigns regarding incidents in the Middle East.
For example, he highlighted an incident of misinformation involving an Israeli bombing of a hospital where reports stated that 500 Palestinians were killed but the actual number turned out to be 20 killed. This incident was a result of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that didn’t make it into Israel.
On Wednesday, during a press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Biden was asked about data from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry that indicated more than 6,000 Palestinians have died since Israeli forces responded to terrorist attacks launched by Hamas on Oct. 7, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis.
“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war,” Biden said. “I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”
The president has steadfastly supported Israel and its right to respond with force in the aftermath of Hamas’ terrorist attacks earlier this month. But he and other administration officials have been increasingly outspoken in recent days about the need to protect civilians and minimize the risk to innocent individuals.
That concern is particularly prevalent in Gaza, where millions of people are already lacking access to adequate food, water and medicine and where humanitarian aid has been slow to arrive.
The Biden administration is pressing Israel to outline its plan for Gaza, including who will govern that territory after an invasion, how to rescue the more than 200 hostages still held by Hamas and how the IDF will reduce civilian casualties in urban combat.
Petraeus said those are critical questions to answer before Israel goes in and begins a ground campaign against Hamas because they “need to be prepared for the day after the post-conflict phase.”
He commented that during his tenure as a two-star general, commanding the 101st Airborne Division, the U.S. “learned the hard way” as part of the invasion of Iraq.
“I remember could you give us a little more detail on what happens after we get to Baghdad and topple the regime and they said, you just get us to Baghdad, we’ll take it from there. That was inadequate. It turned out we had not sufficiently thought it through. We had made assumptions that turned out to be invalidated,” Petraeus said.
The Hill contributed to this report.