CAIRO, September 25. /TASS/. Almost 30 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 "28 people became victims of the Israeli aggression in the enclave, 85 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 41,495 with more than 96,006 people being wounded," Gaza’s health ministry said in a statement.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants 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. Hamas described its attack as retaliation for the aggressive actions taken by 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, launching air strikes on Gaza as well as some parts of Lebanon and Syria before starting a ground operation in the Palestinian enclave.

Against this background, tensions began to rise on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Since October 8, 2023, ongoing cross-border strikes on Israel from Lebanon’s territory have prompted return fire from Israeli forces, who, according to military reports, are targeting Hezbollah facilities. To date, approximately 80,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel.