(NewsNation) — About 33,000 people in Gaza have died since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, an agency in the Hamas-controlled government.

The ministry is the only official source for casualties in Gaza, but some have contested the agency’s reported death toll, arguing the numbers are either inflated or an underestimation.

Johns Hopkins research published in December noted that, historically, the Gaza Ministry of Health’s mortality data has been reliable. Discrepancies between their numbers and those from independent United Nations analyses ranged from 1.5% to 3.8% in previous conflicts.

Some, however, have argued that the Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers this time around rely more heavily on media reports and personal accounts rather than official hospital records, potentially leading to overestimations.

Others, however, have argued that counts coming out of Gaza are an underestimation and don’t include thousands of people who are unaccounted for because they are missing or potentially received an informal burial.

Both sides agree the counts aren’t an exact science, especially when trying to delineate between civilian and military deaths.

Notably, the Israeli military Monday withdrew from a second raid of Gaza’s largest hospital, Shifa, according to reports from the Associated Press. The outlet is one of a small number of international news organizations with reporters in Gaza.

Israel claimed the raid was a victory in its battle against Hamas militants and said it didn’t harm civilians sheltering inside the hospital.

First-hand accounts, and those from the World Health Organization, however, report more than a dozen civilian deaths.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.