CAIRO, October 23. /TASS/. The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since tensions escalated in the Middle East has exceeded 5,000, more than 15,000 people were injured, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.

"Since the beginning of the [Israeli] aggression in Gaza, the number of those killed has reached 5,087, including 2,055 children, 1,119 women and 217 elderly people, 15,273 citizens were injured," the ministry said in a statement on Facebook (a social media site banned in Russia since it is owned by Meta corporation deemed extremist by the Russian authorities).

In the past 24 hours alone, 436 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli shelling, according to the Health Ministry. The number of missing people, who may be under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the bombardment, is 1,500. According to the ministry, 12 hospitals and 32 medical institutions in the enclave have stopped working due to the depletion of fuel reserves.

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.