1 of 4 | The father of Masa Shoman carries the body of his daughter during her funeral in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip, after an Israeli bombardment on houses on Wednesday, January 17, 2024. At least 27 Palestinians were killed in Khan Younis and Rafah within 24 hours as Israeli attacks levelled dozens of residential homes and damaged the Nasser and Al-Amal hospitals, medical sources said. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo
The death toll in Gaza has risen to more than 25,000 people as Israel’s war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas continues in the enclave.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that 25,105 people have been killed and 62,681 have been injured since Israel began the war, retaliating for the October 7 attacks by the Iran-backed Hamas. Palestinian health officials said 178 people were killed by U.S.-backed Israeli troops in the last 24 hours alone. Advertisement
The death toll had approached 23,000 by January 7, meaning more than 2,000 people had been killed in just two weeks of the war.
Hamas has stated that its attack last year came after raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, by Israeli Police and violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians last year alone in a decades-long conflict.
At least 237 Palestinians had been killed by Israelis before the October 7 attack and the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported last year that its healthcare workers experienced 193 separate attacks from Israeli forces in the first six months of the year, a 310% increase compared to the same period in 2022. Advertisement
The Israeli Defense Forces said Sunday that it had killed 15 “terrorists” in Daraj Tuffah. Israel and the United States consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. And in Khan Yunis, Israeli officials said its snipers had “eliminated a number of terrorists.”
Hamas has not said how many of its fighters have been killed, though Israel claims that number is in the thousands. In December, an IDF spokesperson told CNN that it was “tremendously positive” that Israel had killed a Hamas militant for ever two Palestinian civilians it has killed in Gaza.
But, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, the death toll of Hamas fighters alone has fallen short of Israel’s goal to eliminate the group, which governs the Gaza enclave.
“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas’ military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement, strengthening the barrier and the defense components along the security fence,” Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson for Israel’s military, said earlier this month.
“Now, we are focusing on dismantling Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip. We will do this differently, thoroughly, based on the lessons we have learned from the fighting so far.” Advertisement
