Death toll from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza surpasses 45,000

Khan Younis, December 16 (RHC)-- Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has now killed more than 45,000 people, the Ministry of Health in the besieged and battered Palestinian enclave has confirmed.

The revised death toll, which includes 17,000 children, was announced by officials on Monday, marking another grim milestone in the 14-month war.  It does not include the 11,000 missing Palestinians who are thought to be trapped under the rubble.

“The amount of loss of life in Gaza is unbearable among the Palestinians who have been living through this war for more than 14 months,” said Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary.

“Every single aspect of life, including schools, shelters, and hospitals, has been targeted by the Israeli forces,” said Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah in the centre of the Strip.

In the north of Gaza, which has been under an even tighter siege, the situation was especially harrowing, said Khoudary.

“Constant shelling and air attacks continue – quadcopters are chasing and killing Palestinians on the streets,” she said, adding that rescuers were unable to reach people.

“We have been seeing a lot of Palestinians on the ground and no one has been able to get to them,” she said, alluding to a massacre at Khalil Oweida School in Beit Hanoon on Sunday.

Monday morning was also “bloody”, said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from the centre of the Strip amid the sound of explosions as the Israeli military attacked civilians in the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp.

Palestinian health officials reported that 52 dead people had arrived at hospitals across the bombed-out Strip over the past 24 hours.  Medics say 10 of the arrivals – including two parents and their two children – were killed in an overnight Israeli strike on a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shujayea neighbourhood in Gaza City.

A separate strike on Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz School in the southern city of Khan Younis on Sunday killed at least 20 displaced Palestinians.

The Israeli military claimed it had “conducted a precise strike” on members of Hamas operating inside the school compound, but did not provide evidence.

On Monday, mourners gathered for the funeral of Al Jazeera TV journalist Ahmed al-Louh, killed along with five Palestinian civil defence workers in an attack on Nuseirat refugee camp the previous day.

The overall death toll now amounts to roughly 2 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population of about 2.3 million.