Gaza's health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its count, but it said more than half of the victims were women and children. The Israeli army claims to have killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The health ministry said 45,028 people have been killed and 106,962 injured since the start of the war. He said the actual toll was higher because thousands of bodies were still buried under rubble or in areas that doctors could not access. The latest war was by far the deadliest between Israel and Hamas, with the death toll now standing at around 2% of Gaza's total pre-war population of around 2.3 million.
Among the deaths in the overall toll were 10 people, including a family of four, who were killed in an Israeli strike overnight in Gaza, Palestinian doctors said.
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According to the Health Ministry's emergency service, the strike hit a house in the Shijaiyah neighborhood, east of Gaza City. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children.
Israel says Hamas is responsible for the number of civilian casualties because it operates from civilian areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Human rights groups and Palestinians say Israel did not take enough precautions to prevent civilian deaths.
The war began when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 250 others. Israel responded with intensive bombing and a ground incursion into the Palestinian enclave. Around a hundred hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Most of the others were released during a ceasefire last year.
Another strike on a school on Sunday in the southern town of Khan Younis killed at least 13 people, including six children and two women, according to Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken. The hospital initially said the strike killed 16 people, but later revised the toll because the other three bodies came from a separate strike that hit a house.
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The Israeli army said it had “carried out a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control center located in a compound” that had served as a school in Khan Younis. She did not provide evidence.
In the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, mourners gathered for the funeral of a Palestinian journalist working for the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera, who was killed Sunday in a strike on a point of the Gaza civil defense agency. They carried his body down the street from the hospital, his blue bulletproof vest draped over it.
The strike also killed three civil defense employees, including the agency's local head, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Civil Defense is Gaza's main relief agency and operates under the Hamas government.
Al Jazeera said Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, was covering rescue operations for a family injured in an earlier bombing when he was killed.
The International Federation of Journalists said last week that 104 journalists and media workers have been killed so far in 2024, with more than half of them perishing during the war between Israel and Hamas in the Strip. from Gaza.
The group said that since October 7, 2023, when the war began, at least 138 have been killed, including 55 Palestinian media workers during the calendar year.
The Israeli military said its strike targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants “who were operating in a command and control center set up at the 'civil defense' organization's offices in Nuseirat.” She accused the journalist of having been a member of Islamic Jihad, which his colleagues in Gaza denied.
Gaza Civil Defense also rejected claims that militants were operating from the site.
“We were stunned by the declaration of Israeli occupation,” Mahmoud al-Lawh, the journalist's cousin, told the Associated Press. “These claims are lies and deception aimed at covering up this crime.”
