Gaza health ministry: 5,087 Palestinians killed since Israeli strikes started

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories (Agencies): At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7, including 2,055 children, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday, adding that 15,273 were wounded.

The ministry said 436 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including 182 children, with most of the fatalities in the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight and early Monday have killed at least 70 people, Hamas officials said, as the military said it had struck some 320 targets in the Palestinian enclave in 24 hours.

The Hamas-controlled government media office in the blockaded Gaza Strip said in a statement that “more than 60 were martyred in the (Israeli) raids” during the night including 17 who were killed in a single strike that hit a house in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza.

At least 10 other people were killed in new strikes on Monday morning, the media office said in a separate statement, bringing to overall toll since Sunday night to at least 70 deaths.

The Israeli military said Monday it had hit “over 320 military targets in the Gaza Strip” over the past 24 hours.

“The terror targets struck included tunnels containing Hamas terrorists, dozens of operational command centers… and Islamic Jihad terrorists, military compounds, and observation posts,” the army said in a statement.

For more than two weeks, Israel has pummeled the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory with air strikes, following a cross-border attack launched by the armed group on October 7.

The violence has left at least 1,400 people dead in Israel, according to official figures.

Between 200 and 300 people have been killed each day in the besieged territory, according to government tolls.

Amid the campaign, tens of thousands of Israeli troops are gathered along the enclave’s borders for a widely anticipated ground invasion.

The military said Sunday that one soldier was killed and three others wounded during a tank operation inside Gaza.

Israel has warned more than one million residents in northern Gaza to move south for their safety, and the United Nations says more than half of the territory’s 2.4-million population is now displaced.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians are believed to remain in and around Gaza City in the north, unwilling or unable to leave.