Palestinian death toll from war in Gaza surpasses 25,000
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The Palestinian death toll from the war between Israel and Hamas has soared past 25,000, the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said Sunday, while Israel announced the death of another hostage and appeared far from achieving its goals of freeing more than 100 others and crushing the militant group.
The deaths, destruction and displacement from the war are without precedent in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The war has divided Israelis while the offensive threatens to ignite a wider conflict involving Iranbacked groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that support the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he stressed in his conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday that he rejects Hamas demands for a cease-fire, Israeli forces' withdrawal and the release of Palestinians held by Israel in exchange for the remaining hostages. He said that agreeing means another devastating Hamas attack “would only be a matter of time.”
Netanyahu also has rejected calls from U.S, its closest ally, for postwar plans that would include a path to Palestinian statehood. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the refusal to accept a two-state solution unacceptable.
“The Middle East is a tinderbox. We must do all we can to prevent conflict igniting across the region,” Guterres added. “And that starts with an immediate humanitarian cease-fire to relieve the suffering in Gaza.”
In the latest of near-daily clashes between Hezbollah forces and Israeli troops along the Lebanese border, an Israeli airstrike Sunday hit a car near a Lebanese army checkpoint in the southern town of Kafra, killing at least one person and injuring several others, Lebanese state media reported. Israel's military said its aircraft and tanks struck a number of Hezbollah targets, and that an anti-tank missile launched from Lebanon hit a house in Avivim in northern Israel. No injuries were reported.
The war began with Hamas' attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel has responded to the Oct. 7 attack with a bombing campaign and ground invasion that laid waste to entire neighborhoods in northern Gaza and spread south. Ground operations are now focused on the southern city of Khan Younis and builtup refugee camps in central Gaza dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.