CAIRO, October 7. /TASS/. Over 41,900 Palestinians were killed in blockaded Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli Defense Forces attacks over the past year, some 60% of these people were women and children, the Health Ministry of the Palestinian enclave wrote on its Telegram channel.

According to its information, "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 41,909, over 60% of the people killed were women and children." During the year, 97,303 people in Gaza sustained various degrees of injuries. Over the past day "39 people became victims of the Israeli aggression, and 137 Palestinians were injured," Gaza’s Health Ministry specified.

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.