They're not just putting out numbers, they're putting out identifications too. Unless they're falsely claiming identified women and children are dead, they can't really manipulate the numbers.
Also, as another counter point, the numbers are just the people they've identified. Thousands more are missing and presumed buried under the rubble, likely dead or dying. The death toll is necessarily an under-count, and might be closer to 30,000 rather than 25,000. Also? There's around 10 children getting limbs amputated every day, as well as dozens more being severely lacerated and burned. Daily. The death toll isn't the whole story, but there's absolutely no way that you can spin this as Hamas just using the fog of war to create confusion.