Gaza health ministry says toll has crossed 5,000, Hamas claims two drone attacks on Israeli forces

Hamas-controlled health ministry announces 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza Strip. As many as 222 are held hostage, say Israeli forces.

Palestinians gather at the site of Israeli strikes on houses in the northern Gaza Strip, on 23 October 2023 | Reuters/Anas al-Shareef

THE PRINT, 23 October, 2023, New Delhi: Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed 436 people in the last 24 hours, including 182 children, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.

The ministry also said 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in the besieged Gaza Strip since 7 October as Israel ferociously retaliated against a land, air and sea attack on the country’s southern region by Hamas that killed at least 1,405 people. Hamas gunmen also took over 200 hostages.

At least 4,531 have been injured in Israel, while that number stands at 15,273 in Gaza. Israeli strikes have killed at least 95 in the occupied West Bank – including 30 children and one woman – while at least 1,650 have been injured.

Israel said Monday that Hamas was holding 222 hostages as its forces continued to strike the enclave, having hit some 320 targets belonging to the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups over the past day.

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the strip’s civil defence unit, told the independent Palestinian media organisation Wattan that rescue operations were becoming more difficult because of the scale of destruction and impeded access. “Our crews are recovering victims in the form of body parts, and the chances of recovering survivors are diminishing,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.

In signs that the conflict was spreading, Israeli aircraft also struck southern Lebanon overnight, targetting four Hezbollah terrorist cells, the Israel Defence Forces said Monday.

Tamer Qarmout, professor of public policy at Doha Institute of Graduate Studies, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s border skirmishes with Iran-backed Hezbollah could escalate into a full-scale war. “What Hezbollah is doing at the moment is a calculated response. They have set some red lines for Israel which includes the land invasion of Gaza. If Israeli forces go into Gaza, then Hezbollah will escalate it. Where it will end and how it will end, we don’t know yet,” Qarmout said.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said that its ground forces mounted limited raids into Gaza overnight as airstrikes targetted Palestinian militants gathered to repulse an Israeli invasion.

Al Jazeera reported Hamas as saying that its fighters encountered an Israeli armoured unit infiltrating southern Gaza. The group said the infiltration took place east of Khan Younis. It added that its fighters successfully destroyed some Israeli military equipment before returning to base.

Hamas’s armed wing the al-Qassam Brigades also said on the Telegram messaging app that it launched two drone attacks on Israeli forces.

One targetted units of the Israeli Air Force located at the Hatzerim base, while the other attacked the headquarters of the Sinai Division of the Israeli army at the Taslim military base.

On Monday, a third convoy of aid trucks entered Gaza through the Rafah border in Egypt – the only crossing in and out of the enclave that does not border Israel, Reuters reported.

Aid began to trickle in through Rafah from Saturday as it has become the centre of efforts to deliver aid since Israel imposed a “total siege” of Gaza for the 7 October attack.

Thirty-four trucks went in over the weekend – 20 on Saturday and 14 on Sunday – and the number of Monday’s trucks “was similar to each of those days”.

The United Nations has called the situation in Gaza catastrophic and said the enclave needed at least 100 trucks daily to meet the essential needs of the 2.3 million people trapped there.