Gaza’s Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli forces killed at least 47 Palestinians in Gaza in the previous 24 hours, bringing the recorded death toll to 40,738.
“Israeli forces killed 47 people and injured 94 others in three ‘massacres’ of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. “Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them.”
One of the strikes targeted a school in Gaza City that was sheltering displaced civilians. According to AFP, Gaza health officials said the strike targeted policemen and killed a total of 11 people.
“Eleven people, including a woman and girl, were killed when an Israeli air strike struck the Safad school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people,” said Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
Also on Sunday, an effort to vaccinate children for polio began in central Gaza. The drive will last three days in central Gaza before moving to the north and then the south. The World Health Organization said Israel has agreed to pause military operations in those areas while the vaccines are being administered. But Israeli strikes were reported in central Gaza on Sunday, including one on a vehicle that killed four people.
Nearly 11 months into Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, there’s no end in sight to the violence. The US continues to supply weapons for the slaughter and has ramped up arms shipments to Israel over the past month.
The true death toll is unclear since the Health Ministry’s numbers don’t include the 10,000 people who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble. It’s also unclear how many Palestinians have died due to indirect causes.
A letter written by a group of experts recently published in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the total number of deaths in Gaza, including those killed by the Israeli military and indirect causes, could reach 186,000. They reached the numbers by using the death toll from the end of June, which was 37,396.
A group of American doctors and nurses who volunteered in Gaza wrote a letter to President Biden last month, and they estimated that the actual death toll has already exceeded 92,000, or 4.2% of the population. The American medical professionals also detailed the horrific violence being committed by Israeli soldiers against children.
