CAIRO, March 2. /TASS/. More than 30,300 people have been killed as a result of the Israeli army's actions in the Gaza Strip since tensions escalated in October 2023, the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry said.
"The number of victims of the Israeli aggression in Gaza has reached 30,320 so far," Qatar’s Al Jazeera quoted the ministry as saying. Another 71,533 Palestinians were injured.
In the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said, 92 people were killed and 156 injured as a result of Israeli bombing and shelling of Gaza.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian movement Hamas staged a surprise attack on Israeli territory from Gaza, killing residents of Israeli border settlements and taking over 240 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. 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. In response, Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians before the crisis, and has been delivering air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes have also been reported on the West Bank.