President Joe Biden on Wednesday cast doubt on the casualty figures reported from Gaza as Israel continues its U.S.-backed military operation there, telling reporters: I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. But within Bidens own administration, officials have consistently cited the death toll and other data provided by authorities inside Gaza, according to a HuffPost review of internal State Department documents.

HuffPost reviewed nearly 20 State Department situation reports, with the earliest dating from Oct. 8, the day after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a devastating attack inside Israel that killed 1,400 people and sparked the current fighting. Most were prepared by the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and then circulated to a broad group of department officials working on issues related to Israel-Palestine. Situation reports such as these represent U.S. assessments from the ground that are intended to inform policy discussions and decision-making in Washington.

In at least 12 instances, U.S. embassy officials attributed the number of Palestinian casualties to the Hamas-linked Health Ministry in Gaza including in the report provided to State Department colleagues on Oct. 25, hours before Bidens remarks.

In two reports written by States Operations Center and circulated within the department on Oct. 24 and 25, administration officials reported casualties in Gaza by citing two outside sources who quoted the Gaza ministry in their reports: Al Jazeera and the nonprofit Save the Children . And in one instance in which a situation report questioned the accuracy of figures from the Gaza ministry, on Oct. 21, the American official drafting the note wrote of the number of Gazans killed or injured the previous day: The numbers are likely much higher, according to the UN and NGOs reporting on the situation.