CAIRO, November 28. /TASS/. More than 15,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, Al Jazeera television reported, citing officials in the Palestinian enclave.
Those killed include about 6,150 children and 4,000 women. Also, 207 health workers, 26 local civil defense members and 70 journalists have been killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip.
Over 36,000 Palestinians have sustained wounds of varying severity, of whom 75% are children and women.
Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 when some 3,000 Hamas militants launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian movement 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. Israel declared a total siege of Gaza and started carrying out strikes on the Palestinian enclave, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.
On November 22, the Palestinian radical movement Hamas announced reaching an agreement with Israel on a four-day ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, mediated by Qatar and Egypt. The deal would see the release of 50 Israeli women and children, aged under 19, from the Palestinian enclave in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinian women, children and teenagers under 19 years of age from Israeli prisons. The truce began in the Gaza Strip on 8:00 a.m. Moscow time (5:00 a.m. GMT) on Friday, when the first group of hostages were freed. Initially, the deal envisaged a pause in hostilities for one extra day in exchange for the release of every additional ten hostages.