CAIRO, May 7. /TASS/. Nearly 34,800 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023 as a result of Israel’s military operation, the embattled enclave’s Health Ministry said.

"The number of victims of Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip has increased to 34,789, and 78,204 people have been injured," the agency said. It added that over the past 24 hours, 54 people have been killed and 96 wounded in Gaza.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. 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 has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria, followed by a ground operation in the enclave. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.