Gaza death toll exceeds 65,000 since war began in 2023
At least 65,062 people have been killed and 165,697 wounded in attacks on Gaza after nearly two years of Israel’s war, the Health Ministry reports.
In the past 24 hours, the bodies of seven aid seekers and 87 wounded Palestinians were taken to hospitals across Gaza, it said. The latest toll raises the number of people killed at aid sites since the establishment of the GHF at the end of May to 2,504 with more than 18,381 injuries.
Four deaths recorded were caused by famine and malnutrition, increasing the number of dead from the Israeli-induced hunger crisis to 432, including 146 children.
Since the UN-backed IPC declared famine in Gaza last month, 154 deaths from malnutrition have been recorded, including 31 children.
Israel’s objective ‘to destroy Gaza City and make it unliveable’
Israeli political scientist Menachem Klein says that Israel’s actions in Gaza show that its main priority is not recovering Israeli captives held by Hamas, but to render the territory “unliveable”.
Klein, a senior lecturer at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, told Al Jazeera that returning the captives “may be a byproduct of the Israeli operation but not the main goal”.
“About 70 percent of the Strip was already destroyed by Israel systematically, not by accident,” he added. “Even after the fighting, Israel destroys systematically the infrastructure.”
He said that, having devastated Gaza, Israel’s aim was to then “move the population to a concentration zone and then offer them a better life outside Gaza Strip to push them outside”.
Palestinians forced to flee under heavy bombardment
We’re in an area where, about nine months ago, we documented how people made their way back to Gaza City, returning to their homes in the north after almost a year and a half of devastation and destruction.
Particularly, we’re seeing thousands of people being pushed into further internal displacement, coming to the south and central part of the Gaza Strip. But they’re not fleeing voluntarily; they’re fleeing under heavy bombardment, air strikes, heavy artillery and a ground invasion.
Something we want to point out is that for the past few minutes, air strikes have been going on coming from particularly southwestern Gaza City, the Tal al-Hawa district, where thousands and thousands of residents and displaced families have been seeking shelter in that area.
The Israeli military has been following this pattern of attack, applying extreme pressure on residents in order to force them out of their homes in that area.
Palestinians flee to southern Gaza as Israeli attacks intensify
