The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced today (Saturday) that the death toll from the ongoing Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip has risen to 7,703 deaths since the outbreak of war on the Strip on October 7, including more than 3,500 children so far. Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila announced that the dead included about 70 percent of children, women, and the elderly, in addition to about 19,000 injured people, and thousands are still under the rubble, according to the official Palestinian Wafa Agency. 

The ministry said that “the occupation committed 53 massacres in a violent bombardment yesterday (Friday),” while the minister added that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is more difficult than description. Al-Kaila continued: “What is happening in Gaza is genocide. The occupation kills citizens and health teams, destroys and bombs treatment centers and ambulances, prevents the fuel needed for hospitals to operate, prevents the entry of urgent health supplies, prevents the wounded and sick from leaving the Strip for treatment, and also prevents the entry of medical teams.” On top of that, he escalated his aggression to completely separate the sector from the world by cutting off all lines of communication.”

The Minister stressed that the Ministry of Health appeals to all countries, institutions and international organizations to save the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, increase solidarity and international pressure to stop the aggression against humanity, and allow the immediate entry of health support in all its forms into the Strip.

Al-Kaila stated: “Citizens sheltered in shelter centers and schools suffer from the rapid spread of disease infections, lack clean water, are greatly overcrowded, and in very poor sanitary conditions, and all of this is on top of the woes they suffer as a result of being forced by the occupation to displace, bombing their homes, and killing and wounding.” “Their families.”

In a related context, Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said, during a press conference at Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, that the Israeli army committed 53 “massacres” during the last hours that led to the killing of 377 people in different areas of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Qudra added that medical authorities received 1,800 reports of people missing under the rubble of destroyed buildings, including about a thousand children, noting that 110 health personnel were killed and 45 health institutions were targeted in Israeli attacks, according to what the German News Agency reported. 

The spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza urged the authorities Egypt agreed to open the Rafah crossing to ensure the flow of medical aid, the entry of fuel, the removal of the wounded and sick, and the entry of medical delegations to the Gaza Strip’s hospitals. Today, Israel’s war in Gaza entered its fourth week amid intense artillery shelling, an increase in ground incursions, and an interruption of communications and Internet services in the Strip.