NEW YORK, August 30. /TASS/. Too many innocent Palestinians are dying in the Gaza Strip, US Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, said in a CNN interview, adding that although Israel has the right to defend itself, "how it does so matters."

"Israel had has a right to defend itself. <…> And how it does so matters," Harris said in her first joint television interview with running mate Tim Walz since the two accepted the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we have got to get a deal done," she added.

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.

According to latest data, published by the enclave’s Health Ministry, at least 40,602 people have been killed and another 93,855 injured in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated last year.