Gaza death toll rises
At least 135 Palestinians, including 87 aid seekers, have been killed and 771 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry. Three bodies were also recovered from the rubble of previous Israeli attacks, the ministry statement said on Telegram.
The count includes five people who starved to death in the past 24 hours, it said, raising the hunger-related death toll to 193, including 96 children.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed a total of 61,158 Palestinians and injured 151,442 since October 7, 2023, the ministry added.
The total number of aid seekers killed since May 27, when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism through the controversial GHF, has reached 1,655, with more than 11,800 injured, the statement said.
Director of hospital in Gaza City warns of anaesthesia, blood shortages
The director of al-Shifa Hospital, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, has told our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic that pressure on the Gaza Strip’s medical facilities is severe and patients are dying because the hospitals are overwhelmed.
“Hospital occupancy rate exceeds 300 percent,” he said, adding that “anaesthesia supplies will run out in the sector within 48 hours … we do not have enough blood units in stock.
“Many of the injuries we receive are concentrated in the upper parts of the body … we are losing wounded people due to the lack of sufficient operating rooms,” he said.
WHO says ‘arbitrary denial’ of medical teams to Gaza leading to more deaths
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the “complex” Israeli entry requirements for emergency medical teams (EMT) were “severely impacting availability of health services and leading to more deaths in Gaza”.
In a post on X, the WHO said since March 18, the number of teams getting denied have risen by “nearly 50 percent” with 102 EMT health professionals, including surgeons and specialised doctors, barred from entering Gaza.
“Impeding EMTs from participating in the collective humanitarian response comes at a time when we are receiving daily reports of death due to the ongoing conflict and starvation as Gaza faces the worst-case scenario for famine,” the organisation wrote.
“[The] WHO calls for the urgent and expedited facilitation of EMT entry into Gaza,” it added.
Complex entry requirements and the arbitrary denial of international emergency medical teams (EMTs) is severely impacting availability of health services and leading to more deaths in #Gaza.
Since 18 March 2025, denial rates have risen by nearly 50%, with 102 critical… pic.twitter.com/EWvejY9vXi
— WHO in occupied Palestinian territory (@WHOoPt) August 6, 2025
Situation in Gaza ‘getting worse day by day’: Health official
Gaza’s Health Ministry Director-General Munir al-Bursh says the situation in the Gaza Strip is “getting worse day by day”. He told Al Jazeera they had 95 patients with “acute flaccid paralysis”, a sudden weakness in the limbs, which was mainly affecting children.
“The sector has become a fertile area for the spread of diseases. We have 45 patients with Guillain-Barre syndrome [a rare illness that targets the nerves]. There are many cases of poisoning in the sector due to water and food contamination,” al-Bursh said.
“The occupation destroyed most of the laboratories in the Gaza Strip. The occupation is killing the people of the Gaza Strip with bombing, starvation and all means. “Airdropping food is humiliating and people have died because of it,” he added.
Palestinians inspect the damage after an overnight strike on the Sheikh Radwan Health Centre run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the north of Gaza City on August 6
