Israeli strikes in Gaza have claimed 25,000 lives, according to health officials

Sunday saw a flurry of Israeli bombings and street fighting across the Gaza Strip, after the announcement by Palestinian health authorities that the number of Israeli casualties since the start of the conflict had surpassed 25,000. One of the worst days of the conflict so far, according to Gaza’s health ministry, 178 Palestinians have died in the last 24 hours. According to Israel’s military, a soldier died during combat.

From Khan Younis in the south, the center of recent Israeli operations, to Jabalia in the north, Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants engaged in combat in many locations.

Explosions reverberated around the city as Israeli jets continued their intensive assault of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Parts of the Khan Younis refugee camp saw explosions light up the sky, and according to Palestinian health authorities, an airstrike that happened as darkness fell resulted in one Palestinian dead and seven injured.

Israel said that its forces had destroyed the majority of Hamas’ military infrastructure in northern Gaza, and that over a million people had left the territory to escape the shelling. However, there is still fighting in the Jabalia refugee camp and in nearby parts of Gaza City.

After the terrorists broke into Israel on October 7 and rampaged through southern towns and bases, murdering 1,200 people—the majority of whom were civilians—and capturing 253 captives and sending them back to Gaza, Israel launched its war to destroy Iran-backed Hamas. Israel claims to be battling a danger to its own survival.

Since October 7, Israeli bombings have resulted in 25,105 Palestinian deaths and 62,681 injuries, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Many of the victims were women and children. It states that the majority of those slain have been civilians but does not distinguish between killings caused by militants and civilians.

Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, criticized Israel on Sunday for what he described as the “heartbreaking” killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary-general,” Guterres said.

Although Hamas disputes the accusations, Israel claims to take precautions to prevent civilian fatalities while accusing the Islamist organization of operating in heavily populated areas and using people as human shields.

Additionally, Guterres said that Israel’s resistance to the Palestinians’ right to statehood was unacceptable and that doing so would only serve to prolong the war.

His words came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, which seemed to rule out the U.S. and other nations’ advocated two-state solution to the decades-long Israel-Palestinian issue.

In talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, according to Netanyahu’s office, he “reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty.”

Netanyahu rejected Hamas’ demands on Sunday to end the conflict and free the prisoners, which included Israel pulling out completely and handing control of Gaza to Hamas, an Islamist organization devoted to destroying Israel.

As the EU analyzes possible moves toward a comprehensive peace, the foreign ministers of Israel and Palestine will meet with their counterparts from the European Union on Monday in Brussels.

According to Hamas, Washington is backing Israeli military and financial efforts while disregarding the misery and deaths of Palestinians. The attack on October 7 was deemed a “necessary step” by Hamas.

“It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence,” Hamas said in a statement.

The Oct. 7 atrocities, which resulted in the murders of several women and children and the mutilation of corpses, provoked disgust and outrage around the globe.

Since then, the majority of the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip have been forced from their homes. Palestinians recounted horrific circumstances, with entire sections leveled and hospitals and humanitarian groups straining to keep up.

“We try to survive hunger more than we struggle to survive bombs,” Amer, 32, a northern Gaza father of three, told Reuters. “Finding food for the family, for the children, has become a more challenging adventure than surviving war.”

According to the Israeli military, snipers assisted by air power eliminated several terrorists in Khan Younis, while troops in the north shot and killed fifteen Palestinian attackers. Hamas rejected this report.

For the last three days, violence, according to Palestinians, has raged in Jabalia. Where bombs had dropped, smoke ascended and several structures caught fire.

Witnesses said that Israeli warships bombarded the beach along Gaza’s southern shore.

An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the southern city of Rafah, home to over a million displaced persons, claimed the lives of three Palestinians. Three individuals were killed when another automobile in Gaza City was struck, according to health authorities.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority, the rival organization of Hamas, has little autonomy, violence has also increased. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, since October 7, Israeli soldiers have murdered 360 Palestinians.