The Hamas-run health ministry says more than 30,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the war began.
The Gaza health ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says women and children make up around two-thirds of those killed.
It also says the actual figure is higher because there are bodies buried under the rubble and in areas that medics cannot reach.
Israeli military officials have admitted the figure for the amount of deaths is probably right, while the US State Department has also said the number could be even higher because many bodies are likely to be under rubble and unaccounted for.
The Israel Defence Force’s official estimate for the number of Hamas militants killed in the assault on Gaza is 12,000.
The Hamas-run health ministry has given the precise total figures of 30,035 Palestinians dead and 70,457 injured in the attacks which started in October last year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is determined to destroy Hamas after the militant group killed 1,200 people and seized about 250 hostages on 7 October 2023.
Talks have been held to agree a pause in military operations in Gaza and swap Israeli hostages held in the territory for Palestinian prisoners – and it is hoped that another deal may be close.
Image: A Palestinian woman holds her child as she stands at a house damaged in Israeli strikes in Rafah. Pic: Reuters
Meanwhile, health officials in the Palestinian territory said on Thursday that at least 70 people had been killed and more than 280 had been wounded in a strike on a crowd waiting for aid in Gaza City.
Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said it had received at least 10 bodies and 160 wounded people.
Fares Afana, the head of the ambulance service at Kamal Adwan, said medics arriving at the scene found “dozens or hundreds” lying on the ground. He said there were not enough ambulances to collect all the dead and wounded and that some were brought to hospitals on donkey carts.
Dr Mohammad Salha, acting director of the Al-Awda Hospital, said it received 90 wounded and three dead, who were transferred to Kamal Adwan.
“We expect a rise in the number killed,” he said. “There are many wounded still at the reception and the emergency room.”
He said Al-Awda is largely out of commission, with no electricity and the operating room running on battery power with only hours left. Gaza’s health sector is under severe strain nearly five months into the Israel-Hamas war.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.
Thirty thousand dead, in less than five months of fighting. That figure doesn’t include the huge number injured.
It is only an estimate, and impossible for us to accurately corroborate as a figure, but historically the running toll during past Israel-Hamas wars has proven to be fairly accurate, once the guns have fallen silent and the dead could be formally counted.
Israel has repeatedly tried to discredit the Gaza health ministry which collates the numbers as being “Hamas-run” but, in truth, the people who count and register the dead tend to be medical professionals or administrators; according to reports by a number of international news agencies. IDF officials have admitted the figure is probably broadly right and the US State Department has assessed it could be even higher because of the many who are undoubtedly buried under rubble and currently irretrievable.
Among that number, Israel estimates around 12,000 of them were Hamas fighters – that means almost 20,000 were civilians, the majority reportedly women and children – they are every bit as much victims of Hamas’s deadly terror attack on 7 October as Israel’s unforgiving assault on Gaza ever since.
By way of comparison, the charity Oxfam calculated the average number of dead each day in Gaza to be higher than any other recent conflict including in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.
Although the Israel Defence Forces claims to be the most moral army in the world and insists it is making more effort than any army “in the history of the world” to prevent civilian casualties, its tactics in the first few months of the war were clearly assessed by allies, including the US, to be too heavy-handed.
The secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke of there being “a gap” between “Israel’s intent to protect civilians and what we’re seeing on the ground” and President Biden said that “too many” of the dead have been civilians.
It’s those concerns that are persuading Washington and others to warn Israel against invading the southern city of Rafah – with more than 1.1 million people sheltering there, and Israeli assault along the lines that we’ve witnessed over the past months, such an operation could result in a bloodbath unless considerable efforts are made to protect Palestinian civilians.
‘Children suffering from acute malnutrition’
Meanwhile, a senior UN official has warned at least a quarter of Gaza’s population is one step away from famine and many children are severely malnourished.
Humanitarian coordinator Ramesh Ramasingham told the UN Security Council last night “there is every possibility for further deterioration” in the enclave, where nearly everyone needs food.
One in six children under two in northern Gaza – which was first targeted by Israel – are suffering from “acute malnutrition and wasting”, he said.
Despite the huge number of Palestinian casualties and the humanitarian crisis, the leader of Hamas has reportedly expressed confidence the militant group is winning its war against Israel.
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Media seeking ‘free access’ to Gaza
‘War crimes committed by both sides’
Yahya Sinwar, who has remained in hiding during the conflict, recently told senior Hamas officials in Qatar his group “has the Israelis right where we want them”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
It comes as the UN’s human rights chief Volker Turk has said war crimes have been committed by both sides.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mr Turk said all suspected war crimes should be investigated and those responsible held accountable.
“Clear violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws, including war crimes and possibly other crimes under international law, have been committed by all parties,” Mr Turk said.
“It is time – well past time – for peace, investigation and accountability.”
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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2:21
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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1:44
Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.