Senior Israel officials are using the Gaza Health Ministry's death numbers internally, months after both Israel and the U.S. claimed those figures should not be trusted.

“The numbers are heavily relied up for official briefings on civilian casualties because with the exception of strikes on high-value targets, where senior officials are briefed on collateral damage, no civilian casualty figures or estimates are collected,” said the Israeli official, who cannot be identified in the media. “A lot of targets have been hit without prior analysis or estimates and there’s never any follow up collection.”