More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel\u2019s war with Hamas began, the territory\u2019s health ministry said Sunday, a grim milestone for a war with no end in sight as Israel resumes fighting and warns of even tougher days ahead. <\/p>\n
The ministry reported 41 more deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the toll to 50,021. <\/p>\n
Authorities in Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters when reporting casualty figures, but the health ministry and the United Nations say the majority of deaths are women and children. And the true toll could be much higher, with many thousands believed to still be under the rubble. <\/p>\n
The death toll surged as Israel resumed its war with Hamas this week, ending a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Tuesday\u2019s renewed airstrikes made it one of the deadliest days for Palestinians since the war began, with more than 400 killed by Israeli fire, according to the health ministry. By Wednesday, Israel had also resumed its ground operation in the enclave. <\/p>\n
Israel launched a war on Hamas in Gaza on October 7, 2023, following the militant group\u2019s surprise attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostage, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
Hamas called the latest offensive a \u201cnew and dangerous breach\u201d of the ceasefire agreement. The militant group says it is committed to the ceasefire agreement it signed with Israel in January, but on Thursday fired its first rockets at Israel since the truce collapsed. <\/p>\n
Gazans are left with little hope that the killing will slow as Israeli officials warn that what\u2019s to come will be significantly worse. <\/p>\n
Defense Minister Israel Katz this week warned Hamas that Israel will maintain a permanent presence in parts of Gaza unless the hostages in Gaza are released. <\/p>\n
Katz said Friday that he\u2019d instructed the Israeli military \u201cto seize additional areas in Gaza, while evacuating the population, and to expand the security zones around Gaza in order to protect Israeli communities and IDF soldiers through permanent maintenance of the territory by Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
Soon after the renewed campaign began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: \u201cI want to assure you: This is just the beginning.\u201d <\/p>\n
Almost all of Gaza\u2019s population of more than 2 million has been displaced from their homes. The enclave\u2019s healthcare system has been severely damaged, with hospitals often becoming the center of fighting. A humanitarian crisis and famine in parts of Gaza are unfolding, as Israel blocked aid from entering Gaza earlier this month and as its latest operation impedes distribution. <\/p>\n
Negotiations to extend the ceasefire have been moribund nearly from the day it went into effect January 19. Hamas has insisted on sticking to the initial framework signed with Israel in January, which would have seen parties move to a second phase on March 1. Under the terms of the second phase, Israel would have had to withdraw entirely from Gaza and commit to a permanent end of the war. In exchange, Hamas would release all living hostages. <\/p>\n
The second phase never happened, and Israel resumed the war, citing Hamas\u2019 alleged rejection of \u201ctwo concrete mediation proposals presented by the US\u201d and its \u201cthreats to harm IDF soldiers and Israeli communities\u201d as justification for its attacks on Gaza. <\/p>\n
Israel does not dispute that a significant number of Palestinian civilians have been killed in its war in Gaza. It has however long argued that the health ministry\u2019s figures are exaggerated, and that Hamas embeds itself between civilians, using them as \u201chuman shields.\u201d <\/p>\n
The United Nations and United States State Department have repeatedly said they believe the health ministry\u2019s figures to be accurate, and independent academic studies have estimated that the true toll is likely to be far higher. <\/p>\n
This is a developing story and will be updated.<\/i> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel\u2019s war with Hamas began, the territory\u2019s health ministry said Sunday, a grim milestone for a war with no end in sight as Israel resumes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}