Gaza death toll: The Hamas run health ministry in Gaza has announced that more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since the conflict began on October 7. Well, that number equates to about 1.3% of the 2.3 million population there.
The Hamaswan health ministry that there were more than 80 people killed overnight in the Gaza Strip, most of those actually apparently waiting for aid in Gaza City when witnesses there say that there was shelling by israeli tanks. And still an unclear picture about exactly what has happened there. But overall, now this really grim milestone has been passed.
Gaza death toll exceeds 30,000
The health ministry in Gaza is really the only official source of data that we have for casualty numbers, and it’s the one that’s relied on by the UN and others. And it’s saying that the majority of those who have been killed are women and children since the 7 October. And also more than 70,000 people have been injured as well. Gaza death toll exceeds
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These figures rely on bodies being brought in to hospitals or seen by medical workers so they can be properly registered. But actually, it’s thought that real death toll is going to be much higher than this because there are several thousand people who are still considered as being missing in Gaza, many of them buried under the rubble of buildings that have been hit by israeli airstrikes.
Now, it’s important to say that these figures do not differentiate between those who are civilians and those who are fighters with Hamas or other groups in Gaza.
When we’ve asked the israeli military for comment here, it says that some 10,000 people, terrorists, are estimated to have been killed during their operations.
The latest progress on any moves towards a ceasefire.
Well, still in the background here, we have this big diplomatic effort going on to try to get a new longer term truce agreed that would see more of the israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza freed.
At the same time. And you have an israeli delegation, a Hamas delegation who are in Qatar. Qatar, of course, are key mediators here. And the real hope has been that a new deal can be agreed in time for the islamic holy month of Ramadan, which starts on about the 10 March. There’s a lot of us involvement here.
President Biden has spoken very optimistically about an agreement being in place by the start of next week. But the other parties involved have sounded much more cautious there, saying that there are still big gaps to be bridged.
And I suppose one of the issues is if they do do an exchange of prisoners for hostages, the concern in Israel is always who they let out, as they saw that one of the people who they let out in a prisoner exchange before was someone who then went on to plan the October the 7th attacks.
Indeed. So it’s often mentioned by Israelis that the biggest prisoner exchange that there ever was for an israeli soldier held captive by Hamas in Gaza saw the release of Yahya Sinoa, who is the local Hamas leader in Gaza, seen as a mastermind of the 7 October attacks. That, of course, makes it very difficult for people to accept the notion of these prisoner swabs.
And it is thought that in exchange for some 40 of the remaining israeli hostages held in Gaza, that’s really a minority of them that we would have in exchange for that, some 400 palestinian prisoners released from israeli jails. This is according to the reports that have been leaked out. And they would indeed, we’re told, include some who have been convicted of serious offenses of terrorism by Israel. They would be seen as having israeli blood on their hands.
