CAIRO, December 27. /TASS/. The death toll in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israeli airstrikes has exceeded 21,000 since the outbreak of hostilities on October 7, with more than 55,000 people having been injured, the Health Ministry of the embattled Palestinian enclave said.

"The number of dead as a result of Israeli aggression since October 7 has increased to 21,110, with 55,243 wounded," Health Ministry Spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra said in a statement published on the public health agency's official Telegram channel.

According to him, during just the past 24 hours alone, "Israeli occupation forces committed 16 massacres of entire families," leaving 195 victims.

The Health Ministry spokesman expressed concern that the situation around the Nasser Medical Complex, located in the town of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, will be a repeat of the scenario that occurred with the Al-Shifa hospital in the northern part of the enclave, which Israeli forces stormed in November. He called on "international organizations to take effective and urgent action to ensure the protection of the medical complex, its staff, the wounded, sick and thousands of displaced persons."

Tensions in the Middle East flared up again on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from Gaza. 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. Israel announced a total blockade of Gaza and started carrying out airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave, as well as on certain areas in Lebanon and Syria in retaliation for strikes originating in these countries, and launched a ground offensive against Hamas’ strongholds in Gaza. Clashes are also taking place in the West Bank.