CAIRO, September 23. /TASS/. Over 20 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli Defense Forces strikes over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry of the Palestinian enclave reported.

According to its information, over the past day "24 people became victims of the Israeli aggression, 60 Palestinians were wounded." The death toll from Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the current escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in early October 2023 "has exceeded 41,455 with more than 95,878 people being wounded," Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement.

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 250 hostages, including women, children and the elderly. In response, Israel launched a military operation in Gaza with the aim of destroying the military and political structure of Hamas and freeing all those kidnapped. Military actions in the Gaza Strip continue to this day.