Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip had risen to 23,357, with 59,410 people wounded, since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on Oct 7, the Gaza-based Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
It said about 1.9 million people of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million are displaced as entire neighborhoods have been leveled by the Israeli bombardments.
At least 147 Palestinians were killed and 243 others wounded in the Israeli military operations across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, it said. And more than 40 people were killed or wounded on Wednesday alone in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house adjacent to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, the media office of Hamas said in a statement.
The statement added that a journalist named Ahmed Badir was killed in the attack, calling on the international community to stop the “war waged by the Israeli army against civilians, including children and women.”
And at least four members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance crew were killed after Israeli attacks targeted an ambulance vehicle at the entrance to Deir el-Balah, the PRCS said in a statement.
Israel launched a large-scale military offensive in the Palestinian enclave in retaliation for an unprecedented attack by the Hamas movement on southern Israel over three months ago, which claimed the lives of around 1,200 Israelis, according to the Israeli authorities.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that Israel air raided the Hezbollah command center and rocket launch site in southern Lebanon.
Before that, three rockets were fired from Lebanon into the Israeli Arab al-Aramshe region, triggering rocket sirens. The IDF said all three rockets landed in open ground and the Israeli military was striking the launching site.
The United Nations called on Wednesday for the entry of more aid into Gaza and accused Israel of denying several aid missions into the Palestinian enclave.
Obstacles by Israeli authorities prevented UN aid teams from delivering desperately needed humanitarian relief inside Gaza, effectively cutting off five hospitals in the north from access to “lifesaving medical supplies and equipment,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.
“Requests had been denied five times since Dec 26 to reach the Central Drug Store in Gaza City and Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, further north,” OCHA said.
