CAIRO, October 20. /TASS/. The number of fatalities in the Gaza Strip since tensions escalated in the Middle East has exceeded 4,000, the Al Jazeera TV channel said, citing the Gaza Health Ministry.

According to the ministry, about 4,137 Palestinians were killed, more than 13,000 suffered wounds. About a thousand more people, most of them children, are missing. The ministry pointed out that the victims of the attack on the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrios in Gaza were at least 16 people, "dozens more are still under the rubble."

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the shelling has knocked out of action at least seven medical facilities in the Strip, leaving them unable to serve the local population.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank of the Jordan River as well.

According to the latest official data, in Israel, over 1,500 people have lost their lives and roughly 4,600 have been wounded in clashes.