GAZA: The Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday around 27,585 people have been killed in the territory during the war between Hamas and Israel.
The latest toll also includes 107 deaths over the last 24 hours, a ministry statement said, while more than 66,978 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out on October 7 between Hamas and Israel.
The Health Ministry said that Israeli forces conducted 12 separate attacks on the Strip in the past 24 hours, killing 107 people and injuring 143. According to Arab media, the Israeli army has also prevented ambulances and civil defence crews from reaching wounded people and Palestinians stuck under the debris.
Gaza: Health Ministry Says War Death Toll at 27,585
The development comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has held a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Egypt warned any Israeli military deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two sides inked more than four decades ago.
According to US officials the US secretary of state is hoping to get an update on Hamas’s response to a ceasefire proposal in both Qatar and Egypt. The is Blinken’s fifth visit to the middle east in the nearly four-month-long conflict, will later include stops in Israel and Qatar, western media reported.
ALSO READ: French Parliamentary Delegation Calls for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
As Gazans suffer dire humanitarian conditions, the UNRWA, is also facing accusations that its staff members were involved in October 7 assault. Several countries, led by top donor the US, also suspended their funding to the UN aid agency.
Spain, said it would provide an additional 3.5 million euros “so that UNRWA can continue its operations in the short term,” Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares stated. Jordan also urged donors to maintain support for the UN agency “to allow it to provide its key humanitarian services… especially in light of the current tragic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
French Minister for Foreign Affairs Stephane Sejourne, on his first trip to the middle east since taking office, urged for the restoration of Israeli-Palestinian peace dialogue “without postponement.”