'Genocide denial': US House passes amendment barring use of Gaza death toll

The US House of Representatives on Thursday voted to bar the State Department from using international affairs budget funds to cite figures on the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza.

The 269 - 144 vote in favour of the bipartisan amendment, backed by 62 Democrats and 207 Republicans, will now go to the Senate for consideration.

Palestinian-American congresswoman Rashida Tlaib slammed the vote, which observers say is an attempt to hide the scale of the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel.

“Since 1948, Mr. Speaker, there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanise Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence,” Tlaib said in a speech addressing the House ahead of the vote.

"My colleagues want to prohibit our own US officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll."

The Michigan representative reminded her colleagues of the tens of thousands killed by Israel in Gaza, highlighting the number of children among those dead.

“Six children, Mr. Speaker, six are killed in Gaza every single hour. But Palestinians are not just numbers. Behind these numbers are real people—mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who have had their lives stolen from them and their families torn apart, and we should not be trying to hide it,” she said.

“There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don’t even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all. Not when they’re alive, and now, not even when they’re dead. It’s absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial.”

The vote comes as Israel's war on Gaza approaches its tenth month, with at least 37,765 Palestinians killed so far and 86,429 others would, according to Gaza's health ministry.

US officials, including President Joe Biden, have attempted to cast doubt on the reliability of the Gaza death toll, alluding that the data may have been manipulated by Hamas.

“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Biden said in October, prompting Gaza's health authorities to publish a detailed list of the names and ages of the Palestinians killed by Israel at the time.

In previous Israeli assaults on Gaza, casualty figures provided by Gaza's health ministry have been shown to be accurate by UN agencies and NGOs.

The latest vote in Congress comes in a series of Palestine-related votes that have seemingly attempted to protect Israel's image amid the ongoing war.

In November, the House voted to censure Tlaib over her rhetoric on Israel's war on Gaza.

In April, Congress passed into law a bill banning TikTok unless it is sold by its Chinese owners. After the bill was passed, several lawmakers, including Republican Senator Mitt Romney, came forward to highlight how the law would prevent the spread of pro-Palestine material.

During an interview with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Romney implied that the bill received "overwhelming support" in Congress because of the high volume of pro-Palestine content on the app.

“[If] you look at the posting on TikTok and the number of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, its overwhelmingly so on TikTok,” Romney said. 

More recently, the House voted 274 - 155 in favour of a bill sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) after its chief prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.