CAIRO, December 18. /TASS/. The number of Gaza residents killed in Israeli strikes since tensions escalated on October 7 has passed 19,400, the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry said in a statement on Telegram.

"The number of victims of Israel’s aggression has reached 19,453 since October 7. Another 52,286 have suffered wounds," the statement reads.

According to the ministry, at least 310 medical workers have been killed in Israel’s attacks on health facilities in the Strip. Over 90 medical workers, including hospital heads in northern Gaza, have been detained.

The Health Ministry added that Gaza’s medical institutions had recorded at least 350,000 cases of infectious diseases in the areas where displaced persons were staying. The situation in refugee shelters is getting worse as diseases are spreading. People there don’t have enough food, drinking water and personal care items and lack access to medical assistance.

The ministry called on its partiers and the international community to set up first-aid posts and mobile medical units for displaced persons in the western part of Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza, and also establish makeshift hospitals in the north of the Strip.

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, killing residents of border communities and taking people hostage, including women, children and the elderly. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and started carrying out strikes on targets in the enclave, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.