Gaza death toll tops 28k with nearly 68k wounded

“The Israeli occupation committed 16 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, leaving 117 martyrs and 152 injured during the past 24 hours,” the ministry said in a statement.

“Many people are still trapped under rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since the Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people. The attacks have killed more 28,064 people, mostly women and children, and wounded 67,611 others.

The offensive has also left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while most of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

More than 650,000 people have no homes left to return to in Gaza and many more will be unable to return to their residences due to damage inflicted by Israel’s war on the territory and the risks posed by explosives left over from the fighting.

There is also an estimated 12 million tonnes of debris from Israel’s destruction of residential houses in the Palestinian territory that will take more than four years to clear, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) announced in its latest situation report.

The International Court of Justice in a provisional ruling mandated Israel to prevent genocidal attacks in Gaza, but it has continued with the assault.