More than 15,900 Palestinians, including 250 health workers, have died in Gaza since the outbreak of war on October 7, the Palestinian Health Minister reported Tuesday.
The death toll in the Strip is steadily rising despite international calls for Israeli forces to limit harm to civilians in the new phase of their military offensive in Gaza that began Dec. 1 when a truce with Hamas collapsed, it said. the Minister of Health, Mai al Kaila, at a press conference. in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
According to his ministry, more than 40,900 people in Gaza have been injured by Israeli bombing. "If the pace at which the (Israeli) forces advance continues, the health sector may completely collapse," al Kaila warned.
According to Al Kaila, the ministry was doing its best to count the dead in real time, but warned that the final death toll in this war will be much higher. This is because thousands of bodies remain buried in the rubble of the airstrikes, and the government authority in charge of removing bodies from bombing sites, called Civil Defense, is virtually inoperative due to the attacks.
Israel is expanding its ground operation in southern Gaza, a spokesman announced Tuesday, adding that the government was open to approaches that include reducing harm to civilians, as requested by its main partner, the United States, as long as when the advice is consistent with its goal of destroying Hamas.
Al Kaila claimed that Israeli airstrikes hit health facilities and hospitals and that Israeli forces detained 30 health workers during the offensive launched in retaliation for the October 7 massacre in southern Israel by Hamas militants who killed to 1,200 people, according to Israeli counts.
In the south of the densely populated territory, only five hospitals remain operational, with minimal capacity, and the total number of beds is 1,300, Al Kaila reported. He also referred to the "disastrous" state of health services in Gaza, comments similar to those made by a World Health Organization official in the besieged enclave earlier that day.
In addition to the injured, Gazans suffer the consequences of the lack of access to drinking water, due to Israel's blockade. Gaza health officials have recorded as many cases of severe diarrhea among children as among children in the enclave in all of 2020 and 2021 combined, the minister reported.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where violence has increased since the Gaza war broke out, 260 Palestinians have been killed and 3,200 wounded since October 7, according to the ministry.
