Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that Israeli attacks across the Strip killed at least 31 Palestinians and wounded 79 over the previous 24-hour period.
The ministry counts the casualties based on the number of dead and wounded that arrive at hospitals. “There are still a number of victims under the rubble and on the streets, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
Reuters reported that Israeli strikes on two separate areas of northern Gaza on Tuesday killed extended families in their homes. Palestinian medics said that at least 10 were killed by an attack on a home in a suburb of Gaza City.
In Beit Lahia, which has been under total siege since early October as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign, at least 15 people were believed to be killed or missing under the rubble following an Israeli airstrike. Rescuers were unable to access the site due to the siege of the city.
The medics told Reuters that at least 10 other Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in other parts of Beit Lahia and Gaza City. Beit Lahia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital also said Israeli forces targeted its electricity generators, oxygen network, and water tanks, endangering the lives of patients.
In southern Gaza, Israeli tanks entered the Mawasi camp, a so-called “safe zone” that has come under frequent Israeli attacks. According to Reuters, IDF soldiers forcibly displaced Palestinian civilians, blew up several houses, and burned down tents.
The Health Ministry said the latest violence brought its recorded death toll since October 2023 to 45,059 and the number of wounded to 107,041.
In October, a group of American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza estimated in an open letter to President Biden that the US-backed Israeli onslaught has killed at least 118,908 Palestinians, a total that includes indirect deaths caused by the Israeli siege. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who led the letter, told Antiwar.com in a recent interview that the estimate was the bare minimum they came up with by looking at the available data.
