GAZA CITY, Palestine: More than 60,000 children in the Gaza Strip have lost one or both parents since Israel’s military campaign began in October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry said in a report on Wednesday.
According to the health ministry report, at least 60,737 children were orphaned or left with a single parent, including 52,095 who lost their fathers, 5,929 their mothers, and 2,713 who lost both parents.
The ministry also said 2,276 families — comprising 8,858 individuals — had been “completely wiped out” from the civil registry amid the ongoing Israeli military offensive.
Overall, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 73,000 since October 2023, the health ministry report added.
Despite a ceasefire reached in October 2025, Israeli forces have continued to carry out strikes across the Palestinian territory, with more than 1,100 people reported killed since the truce came into effect.
The health ministry figures highlight the severe humanitarian toll of the conflict, with thousands of children left without parental care and entire families erased during months of sustained violence.
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According to an independent United Nations inquiry, Israeli authorities and security forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the occupied West Bank.
The report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Around 30 percent of those killed in the Gaza war were children, the UN report found.
A previous report by the commission in September found that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, incited these acts — accusations that Israel called scandalous.
