CAIRO, January 28. /TASS/. The death toll from Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip since October 7 is approaching 26,500, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said.

"The number of those killed as a result of Israel’s aggression since October of last year has risen to 26,422, and 65,087 people have suffered wounds," the ministry said in a statement posted on its Telegram channel.

According to it, "at least 165 people have been killed in the enclave and 290 have been wounded alone in the past 24 hours."

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.