GAZA'S 'SOCIAL FABRIC DESTROYED': Death toll surpasses 70,000 as Israel’s genocidal war
Agencies:
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 70,100 Palestinians and wounded 170,965 since October 2023. According to the enclave’s health ministry said on Saturday.
A total of 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 were taken captive.
The toll has continued to rise after the latest ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10.
Israel still carries out strikes in response to what it has called violations of the truce, and bodies from earlier in the war are being recovered from the rubble.
Staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies of the children in southern Gaza, said the brothers, ages 8 and 11, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila.
Israel’s military said it killed two people who crossed into an Israeli-controlled area, “conducted suspicious activities,” and approached troops.
The statement did not mention children. The military said it also killed another person in a separate but similar incident in the south.
At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Hamas again urged mediators on Saturday to pressure Israel to stop what it called ceasefire violations in Gaza.
A US blueprint outlining the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by more than two years of war, is still in the early stages.
The plan to secure and govern the territory authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority, and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.
Israeli forces have pushed forward on a number of other fronts in the region in recent weeks.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers were accused by Palestinians of executing two men on Thursday after footage aired by two Arab television stations showed troops shooting the men after they appeared to surrender.
Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.
The UN often cites the health ministry’s death figures and says they are credible.