GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that at least 50,021 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since war with Israel began in October 2023.
“The toll for the Israeli aggression has reached 50,021 martyrs and 113,274 wounded since October 7, 2023”, a ministry statement said.
The territory’s civil defence agency, citing its own records, also said the toll had topped 50,000 deaths.
AFP has been unable to independently verify the figures, as has been the case throughout the war.
The United Nations has deemed the figures from the health ministry reliable.
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The toll surged this week following the breakdown of a truce that had largely held since January 19, with Israel launching heavy bombardments of the Gaza Strip and a renewed ground offensive.
The health ministry reported at least 39 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of people killed to 673 since Israel resumed operations in the Palestinian territory on Tuesday.
A study published in early January in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated that the death toll in Gaza due to hostilities during the first nine months of fighting was about 40 percent higher than the figures recorded by the Gaza health ministry.
The health ministry said its latest toll includes 233 people previously considered missing whose deaths had been confirmed.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
