CAIRO, January 14. /TASS/. The death toll from Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip since October 7 has climbed to more than 23,900, with more than 60, 500 people being wounded, Gaza’s health ministry said.

"The number of those killed as a result in Israel’s aggression since October 7, 2023 has risen to 23,968. As many as 60,582 people have been wounded," it said in a statement posed on its Telegram channel.

According to the ministry, as many as 125 people were killed and 265 were wounded in the Gaza Strip over the past day alone.

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.