Palestinians mourn the bodies of civil defense workers who were victims of an Israeli army attack in the Nuseirat camp at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Monday. Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip – The death toll in the Gaza Strip from the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas militants has exceeded 45,000 people, Palestinian health authorities said Monday. Fifty-two deaths occurred in hospitals on the other side of the bombed strip in the last 24 hours.
Gaza's health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but said more than half of the fatalities were women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
As the death toll climbs, efforts for a ceasefire have increased in recent weeks after repeatedly stalling. Qatar, Egypt and the United States have renewed efforts to reach an agreement at the highest level in recent days. Mediators said there appeared to be greater willingness on both sides to reach a ceasefire.
According to the Ministry of Health, 45,028 people have been killed and 106,962 injured since the start of the war. It said the actual death toll was higher because thousands of bodies were still buried under rubble or in areas where doctors could not access. The recent war was by far the deadliest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas. The death toll now stands at around 2% of Gaza's total pre-war population, which was around 2.3 million people.
A family is among the dead when another airstrike hits a shelter
The total reported dead included 10 people, including a family of four, killed in an overnight Israeli attack in Gaza City, Palestinian medics said.
According to the Health Ministry's emergency services, the strike hit a house in the eastern Shijaiyah district of Gaza City late Sunday. Rescuers recovered the bodies of ten people from under the rubble, including two parents and their two children, it said.
Israel claims Hamas is responsible for the civilian death toll because it operates from civilian areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip. Human rights groups and Palestinians say Israel has failed to take sufficient precautions to prevent civilian deaths.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping another 250. Israel responded with heavy bombing and a ground attack on the Palestinian enclave. There are still around 100 hostages in the Gaza Strip, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Most of the others were released as part of a ceasefire last year.
The body of 18-month-old Sham Shurrab is carried for burial by her uncle after an Israeli airstrike on the Muwassi camp outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 5. Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
Another attack on a school on Sunday in the southern city 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 reported that 16 people were killed in the strike, but later revised the death toll because the three other bodies were from a separate strike in which a house was hit.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, said she met with children injured in Sunday's strike at the school-turned-shelter. Among them was a 17-year-old girl who suffered a serious leg injury and shrapnel wounds. She survived along with her twin sister and three other sisters, Wateridge said.
Her mother died and Wateridge said one of the sisters described “how her mother's bones were crushed under the rubble. “There was nothing they could do to save her.”
Wateridge also met with two siblings, ages 2 and 5, at Nasser Hospital, where the injured were taken. Both children have serious head and body injuries, with two-year-old Julia losing her sight. “We can't do anything. “We are already waiting for the next attack,” Wateridge quoted a doctor as saying.
The Israeli military said it “carried out a precise attack on Hamas terrorists operating in a command and control center at a compound” that had served as a school in Khan Younis. No evidence was presented.
A Palestinian journalist killed in an airstrike is mourned
Mourners gathered in the Nuseirat urban refugee camp in central Gaza for the funeral of a Palestinian journalist working for the Qatar-based television channel Al Jazeera, who was killed on Sunday during a strike at a Gaza Civil Defense point. They carried his body across the street from the hospital, his blue bulletproof vest resting on top.
According to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the strike also killed three Civil Defense employees, including the agency's local head. Civil Defense is Gaza's main rescue organization and reports to the Hamas-led government.
Al Jazeera said 39-year-old Ahmad Baker Al-Louh was reporting on rescue operations of a family injured in an earlier bombing when he was killed.
The International Federation of Journalists announced last week that 104 journalists and media workers have been killed so far in 2024, more than half of whom died during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The group said at least 138 people have been killed since the war began on October 7, 2023, including 55 Palestinian media workers in the calendar year.
The Israeli military said its attack targeted Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters “operating in a command and control center housed in the offices of the 'Civil Defense' organization in Nuseirat.” The journalist was accused , to have been a member of Islamic Jihad, which his colleagues in Gaza denied.
Gaza Civil Defense also rejected claims that militants had operated from the site.
“We were stunned by the Israeli declaration of occupation,” Mahmoud al-Lawh, the journalist’s cousin, told The Associated Press. “These claims are lies and misleading to cover up this crime.”
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