At least 44,875 Palestinians have been killed and 106,454 injured in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, according to a statement today by the enclave’s health ministry.

In the last 24 hours, at least 40 people have died, according to the same statement.

At least 58 killed in IDF shelling on Thursday

Meanwhile, yesterday. Thursday, the civil defense of the Gaza Strip announced that a series of Israeli bombardments in the enclave claimed the lives of at least 58 people, including at least 12 policemen assigned to guard trucks carrying humanitarian aid in the small coastal Palestinian area, where the humanitarian situation is described as dire after more than 14 months of war.

The first of these bombings came hours after the UN General Assembly in New York voted to call for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip – a call of largely symbolic value, rejected by Israel and the US but described as “critical” by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

After midnight yesterday, seven policemen were killed in a bombing in Rafa and five others in a strike in Han Younis, two nearby towns in the southern part of the enclave, Mahmoud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defense agency, told the French news agency.

“Trucks carrying flour were on their way to UNRWA warehouses,” he explained.

Eyewitnesses told AFP that some residents looted the flour being transported after the bombings.

The Israeli army, for its part, said in a statement that it carried out “precise strikes against armed Hamas terrorists” in the southern Gaza Strip to “guarantee the safe delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians.”

After noon, the Israeli army issued a new order for the urgent evacuation of civilians from five “zones” in Gaza City in the north, where it said “gunmen were operating.”

Israeli jets hit homes near refugee camp

In other raids in the early hours of yesterday morning, Israeli warplanes struck two houses near the Nusayrat (central) refugee camp and in Gaza City, according to Mr. Bassal.

“Fifteen dead, including at least six children, and more than 17 wounded were identified following Israeli shelling” against a house housing internally displaced persons near Nusayrat, he explained. The bodies of six other people in the strike on a Gaza City apartment were taken to a hospital, as were many of the wounded.

Early yesterday evening, Mr Bashal said another house was bombed in the Nusayrat refugee camp, which was also hosting displaced people. “We have at least 25 martyrs and 50 wounded,” he summarized.

Since October 6, the Israeli army has launched an offensive in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave to, it, prevent the regrouping of units of the military arm of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

“Catastrophic” humanitarian and health situation in Gaza Strip, says UN

On Tuesday night into Wednesday, at least 22 people, including women and children, were killed in an Israeli bombardment in the north, according to civil defence.

In Deir al-Bala (central), Bassam al-Habasa spoke yesterday of an overnight bombardment in which he lost relatives. “My whole family was wiped out,” he said, only “two little girls survived, one with an amputated leg.” “We call on the free people of the world (…) to put an end to these daily massacres,” he added.

The UN has described the humanitarian and health situation in the Gaza Strip as “catastrophic” due to the war that broke out triggered by Hamas’ unprecedented attack on the southern part of the Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.

On Tuesday, UNRWA said it was able to distribute food to “nearly 200,000 people in the southern and central parts” of the enclave after resuming aid deliveries “through the Kerem Shalom crossing” that had been suspended since late November.

But yesterday, a “serious incident” was reported as just one truck from a 70-car convoy moving along the Gaza Strip’s southern border with Egypt reached its destination.

The agency did not give details of the incident, but called on “all parties to guarantee safe, unhindered and uninterrupted aid deliveries.”

The Hamas assault on southern Israel claimed the lives of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians, according to a French News Agency count based on official data, which includes hostages who died in captivity or were already dead when they were brought into the enclave.

Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas after the attack, and the large-scale military retaliatory operations it has conducted since then have claimed the lives of at least 44,835 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the most recent data from the Hamas health ministry in the Gaza Strip, which the UN has described as reliable.