Health officials report that nearly 5,100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have lost their lives since Israel initiated an extensive bombing campaign against the besieged enclave, following an attack by Hamas within Israel over two weeks ago.
On Monday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health disclosed that approximately 40 percent of the 5,087 casualties are children.
This revelation coincided with the Israeli army’s announcement of over 300 new air attacks carried out within a 24-hour period.
Palestinian officials stated that more than 400 individuals lost their lives during that timeframe.
In the wake of the conflict, thousands of buildings lie in ruins, and over one million people have been displaced within the territory.
Gaza, under siege and facing severe shortages of water, food, and other essential supplies, remains in a dire humanitarian situation.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “erase Hamas,” hostilities continued to intensify throughout the night, with the looming prospect of a full-scale ground invasion.
It is worth noting that Hamas’s earlier attack in southern Israel resulted in the death of at least 1,400 people, predominantly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
The Israeli military declared on Monday that it had attacked “over 320 military targets in the Gaza Strip” in the day preceding.
It said the targets “included tunnels containing Hamas terrorists, dozens of operational command centres” as well as “military compounds and observation posts” used by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another armed group.
More than 60 people were killed in the raids during the night, including 17 in a single strike that struck a house in northern Gaza, according to the government media office in Gaza. At least 10 more people were killed in fresh strikes that occurred early on Monday.
Mohammed Abu Sabalah, a resident of Rafah in the south, claimed that on Monday, “a quarter of an hour later there was a bombing” happened after he had returned home from a mosque following dawn prayers.
“We couldn’t see anything because of the thick smoke,” he said, adding, “We thank God that we’ve emerged safe and sound” with “only a few windows and doors destroyed”.
Tala Herzallah, 21, who evacuated to the south following Israel’s order to leave the northern Gaza Strip on October 13, said last night “could not be “described in words”.
“We were literally shaking due to fear. We didn’t know if we would wake up alive or not,” Tala noted, adding that she woke up in the morning to a “series of bombings” nearby.
Israeli forces have gathered near the Gaza border, and smaller units have conducted limited incursions to target Hamas and attempt to rescue captives taken by the group from Israel on October 7. Israel currently estimates the number of captives at 222.
“We were displaced from Tal al-Hawa to Rafah at the request of the Israeli army, and this is what happened to us. My son is a 3-month-old martyr,” the father of a child killed in an attack in Rafah told Al Jazeera.
Hamas confirmed the skirmishes, stating its fighters encountered an Israeli armored unit infiltrating east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The group reported that its fighters destroyed some Israeli military equipment.