CAIRO, November 21. /TASS/. The death toll from Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip has exceeded 14,000, with more than 33,000 people being wounded, Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said on Tuesday.

According to the Hamas official, as many as 14,128 people, including 5,840 children, have died in the Gaza Strip. The number of those reported missing climbed to 6,800, with some 4,500 of them being women and children.

Apart from that, he said that the number of victims among medical personnel - doctors, nurses, and paramedics - has reached 205, among civil defense representatives - 22, and among journalists - 62.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.