DOHA/GAZA - The toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the GazaStrip since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in October has passed 25,000, Gaza health officials said, while Israeli attacks and street battles raged across the Hamas-run enclave on Sunday. Israeli forces and Hamas fighters clashed in several places, from Jabalia in the north to Khan Younis in the south, the focus of recent Israeli operations.
Israel said its troops had cleared much of northern Gaza of Hamas’ military network and more than a million residents of that part of the enclave have moved south to flee the bombardments. However fighting has continued in the Jabalia refugee camp and other areas around Gaza City. Gaza’s health ministry said 178 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours, one of the deadliest days of the war so far. Israel’s military said a soldier was killed in fighting.
A total of 25,105 Palestinians - many of them women and children - have been killed and 62,681 have been wounded in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7, the ministry said in a statement. It does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths but says most of those killed have been civilians. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday denounced Israel for what he called the “heartbreaking” deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary-general,” Guterres said at a summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala. Israel unleashed its campaign to eliminate Hamas after fighters burst into Israel on Oct. 7 and rampaged through southern towns and bases, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 253 hostages back to the enclave. It says it is fighting a threat to its very existence. Despite the huge death toll, the Israeli military has said it takes steps to avoid civilian casualties but it accuses Hamas of operating in densely populated areas and using civilians as human shields, a charge the Islamist group denies. Most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes. With large areas of the Gaza Strip razed to the ground and hospitals and humanitarian agencies struggling to cope, Palestinian described dire conditions.
