Gaza ministry says 34,535 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since Oct. 7

[April 30, 2024]  CAIRO (Reuters) - More than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed and 77,704 wounded in the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7 last year, the Gaza health ministry said on Tuesday. 

Israeli military strikes across Gaza in the past 24 hours killed 47 people and wounded 61, it said.

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, April 29, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/File Photo

The Gaza Civil Emergency Service estimated that the bodies of a further 10,000 Palestinians were under the rubble of hundreds of destroyed buildings.

It said those figures had not been included in the updated health ministry death toll, which only registers bodies that are taken to hospitals.

"In light of the lack of heavy equipment, efforts to search for the bodies of the martyrs will remain insufficient and will not be enough to recover the bodies of thousands of them," it said.

The accumulation of bodies under the rubble has begun to cause the spread of diseases, it said, as summer approaches and the temperature rises.

Israel says it is waging war to eradicate Gaza's Hamas rulers following the militant group's rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 253 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

(Reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi; Writing by Tala Ramadan and Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Alex Richardson and Nick Macfie)

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