President Biden says he has “no confidence” in the casualty figures regularly reported by the Hamas-led Health Ministry to reporters in Israel and elsewhere covering the conflict in Gaza.

During a news conference with the Australian prime minister, who is in Washington Wednesday for a state visit, Mr. Biden said the civilian casualties are an unfortunate consequence of war and urged the Israelis to do everything they can to mitigate them. During the question-and-answer session, he was asked by a reporter whether the figures released by Hamas mean that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is ignoring Mr. Biden’s entreaties.

“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Mr. Biden responded. “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s a price of waging a war.”

“I think we should be incredibly careful — not we, the Israelis — should be incredibly careful to be sure that they’re focusing on going after the folks that are propagating this war against Israel,” he added. “It’s against their interests when that doesn’t happen, but I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that, as of Wednesday, some 6,546 Palestinians have been killed and 17,439 have been wounded since October 7. Israel says more than 1,400 of its citizens have been killed and more than 200 are still being held hostage in Gaza.

Questions have arisen about the health ministry’s casualty figures since a bombing at the Ahli hospital in Gaza last week. The health ministry reported at the time, and many western news outlets reported, that nearly 500 died in a blast that has since been traced to an errant rocket fired from within Gaza at Israeli targets. Subsequent analysis by European and American intelligence sources say the real casualty figure from the blast is probably in the dozens.

In a post on X, formerly called Twitter, a former bureau chief for the Reuters news agency, Luke Baker, also expressed skepticism about the regular casualty counts released by Hamas. In the past, he said, such reports were considered relatively reliable because they came from honest doctors and hospital administrators. That is no longer the case, he said.

“Hamas has now been in charge in Gaza for 16 years,” Mr. Baker writes. “It has squeezed the life out of honesty and probity. Any health official stepping out of line and not giving the death tolls that Hamas wants reported to journalists risks serious consequences.”

“There is no question that high numbers of civilians are being killed as Israel carries out air strikes on Hamas targets through Gaza,” he added. “Media organizations should look at themselves in the mirror and ask ‘How do I know what I know?’ And if the answer is ‘because a Hamas-run health ministry official told me,’ then there are serious problems with the reliability of the information they are reporting as fact to the world.”