Latest news with #PalestinianHealthMinistry
The Hindu
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hindu
‘No Other Land' collaborator Odeh Hathalin shot dead by Israeli settler in West Bank
Palestinian activist and No Other Land collaborator Odeh Hathalin was killed on Monday after being shot by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank, according to multiple reports. Hathalin was reportedly shot in the chest near the village of Umm al-Khair, south of Hebron. Israeli journalist and No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham first reported the shooting, stating that Hathalin had sustained critical injuries after being struck in the upper body. The Palestinian Health Ministry later confirmed his death. His death adds to the growing toll of violence in the region, which has escalated significantly over the past year. Odeh just died. Murdered. — Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025 The Israeli police said a civilian was detained at the scene and arrested for questioning but did not release the individual's name. Israeli military sources told CNN that the incident occurred after 'terrorists hurled rocks toward Israeli civilians near Carmel,' a nearby settlement. Abraham also pointed to the legal imbalance in the aftermath of the killing. He noted that after Odeh was shot, the accused settler allegedly directed soldiers to detain four members of Odeh's family — who remain in custody — while the shooter himself was later released to house arrest. Multiple Israeli media outlets have identified the alleged shooter as Yinon Levi, a settler previously sanctioned by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada for violence against Palestinians. Basel Adra, a co-director of No Other Land and a longtime friend of Hathalin, shared a tribute on social media. 'He was standing in front of the community settler in his village when a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life,' Adra wrote. 'This is how Israel erases us — one life at a time.'
NDTV
2 days ago
- Health
- NDTV
How Many Palestinians Has Israel's Gaza Offensive Killed?
Palestinian health authorities say Israel's ground and air campaign against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 60,000 people, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18. After a two-month ceasefire earlier this year, Israel resumed an all-out air and ground campaign against Hamas in March. Palestinian health officials say more than 8,500 have been killed since then. The war began on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people into captivity in Gaza. A new update released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Tuesday put the number of those killed in Gaza during the war at 60,034 people, ranging from a newborn baby to a 110-year-old. Of those, 18,592 or 30.8% were under 18. The official Palestinian Health Ministry death toll dwarfs those killed in previous bouts of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza since 2005, according to data from Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem. An international monitoring group warned on Tuesday a worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in Gaza and immediate action is needed to avoid widespread death. This explainer examines how the Palestinian toll is calculated, how reliable it is, the breakdown of civilians and fighters killed and what each side says. HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH TOLL? In the first months of the war, death tolls were calculated simply by counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed. In May 2024, the ministry included unidentified bodies, which accounted for nearly a third of the overall toll. However, since October 2024, it has only included identified bodies. A Reuters examination in March of an earlier Gaza Health Ministry list of those killed showed that more than 1,200 families were completely wiped out, including one family of 14 people. IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL COMPREHENSIVE? The numbers do not necessarily reflect all victims, as the Palestinian Health Ministry estimates several thousand bodies are under rubble. Official Palestinian tallies of direct deaths in the Gaza war likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40% in the first nine months of the war as Gaza's healthcare infrastructure unravelled, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet journal in January. The U.N. human rights office also says the Palestinian authorities' figure is probably an undercount. The deaths the U.N. has verified up to March this year show that nearly 70% were women and children. HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL? Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters. The U.N. often cites the ministry's death figures and the World Health Organization has voiced full confidence in them. DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES? While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave's Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. Gaza's Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority pays the salaries of those hired before then. WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY? Israeli officials have said previously that the death toll figures are suspect because of Hamas' control over government in Gaza and are manipulated. The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Palestinian health authorities' toll passing 60,000. The Israeli military says 454 of its soldiers were killed in combat, and 2,840 others wounded since its Gaza ground operation began on Oct. 27, 2023. The Israeli military also says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It says Hamas uses Gaza's civilians as human shields by operating within densely populated areas, humanitarian zones, schools and hospitals, which Hamas denies. HOW MANY OF THE DEAD ARE FIGHTERS? The Palestinian Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification. The Israeli military said in January 2025 it had killed nearly 20,000 Hamas fighters. It has not provided an update since. Such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed. Hamas has said Israeli estimates of its losses are exaggerated, without saying how many of its fighters have been killed.
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Explainer-How many Palestinians has Israel's Gaza offensive killed?
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Palestinian health authorities say Israel's ground and air campaign against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 60,000 people, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18. After a two-month ceasefire earlier this year, Israel resumed an all-out air and ground campaign against Hamas in March. Palestinian health officials say more than 8,500 have been killed since then. The war began on Oct. 7, 2023 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into Israeli communities. Israel says the militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people into captivity in Gaza. A new update released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Tuesday put the number of those killed in Gaza during the war at 60,034 people, ranging from a newborn baby to a 110-year-old. Of those, 18,592 or 30.8% were under 18. The official Palestinian Health Ministry death toll dwarfs those killed in previous bouts of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza since 2005, according to data from Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem. An international monitoring group warned on Tuesday a worst-case scenario of famine is now unfolding in Gaza and immediate action is needed to avoid widespread death. This explainer examines how the Palestinian toll is calculated, how reliable it is, the breakdown of civilians and fighters killed and what each side says. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Business No clarity yet on baseline or pharmaceutical tariffs with US: DPM Gan Singapore Grace Fu apologises for Tanjong Katong sinkhole, says road may stay closed for a few more days Singapore Terrorism threat in Singapore remains high, driven by events like Israeli-Palestinian conflict: ISD Singapore Liquidators score victory to recoup over $900 million from alleged scammer Ng Yu Zhi's associates Singapore Man on trial for raping woman who hired him to repair lights in her flat Sport IOC president Kirsty Coventry a 'huge supporter' of Singapore Singapore Child and firefighter among 7 taken to hospital after fire breaks out in Toa Payoh flat Singapore S'pore can and must meaningfully apply tech like AI in a way that creates jobs for locals: PM Wong HOW DO GAZA HEALTH AUTHORITIES CALCULATE THE DEATH TOLL? In the first months of the war, death tolls were calculated simply by counting bodies that arrived in hospitals and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed. In May 2024, the ministry included unidentified bodies, which accounted for nearly a third of the overall toll. However, since October 2024, it has only included identified bodies. A Reuters examination in March of an earlier Gaza Health Ministry list of those killed showed that more than 1,200 families were completely wiped out, including one family of 14 people. IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL COMPREHENSIVE? The numbers do not necessarily reflect all victims, as the Palestinian Health Ministry estimates several thousand bodies are under rubble. Official Palestinian tallies of direct deaths in the Gaza war likely undercounted the number of casualties by around 40% in the first nine months of the war as Gaza's healthcare infrastructure unravelled, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet journal in January. The U.N. human rights office also says the Palestinian authorities' figure is probably an undercount. The deaths the U.N. has verified up to March this year show that nearly 70% were women and children. HOW CREDIBLE IS THE GAZA DEATH TOLL? Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters. The U.N. often cites the ministry's death figures and the World Health Organization has voiced full confidence in them. DOES HAMAS CONTROL THE FIGURES? While Hamas has run Gaza since 2007, the enclave's Health Ministry also answers to the overall Palestinian Authority ministry in Ramallah in the West Bank. Gaza's Hamas-run government has paid the salaries of all those hired in public departments since 2007, including in the Health Ministry. The Palestinian Authority pays the salaries of those hired before then. WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY? Israeli officials have said previously that the death toll figures are suspect because of Hamas' control over government in Gaza and are manipulated. The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Palestinian health authorities' toll passing 60,000. The Israeli military says 454 of its soldiers were killed in combat, and 2,840 others wounded since its Gaza ground operation began on Oct. 27, 2023. The Israeli military also says it goes to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It says Hamas uses Gaza's civilians as human shields by operating within densely populated areas, humanitarian zones, schools and hospitals, which Hamas denies. HOW MANY OF THE DEAD ARE FIGHTERS? The Palestinian Health Ministry figures do not differentiate between civilians and Hamas combatants, who do not wear formal uniform or carry separate identification. The Israeli military said in January 2025 it had killed nearly 20,000 Hamas fighters. It has not provided an update since. Such estimates are reached through a combination of counting bodies on the battlefield, intercepts of Hamas communications and intelligence assessments of personnel in targets that were destroyed. Hamas has said Israeli estimates of its losses are exaggerated, without saying how many of its fighters have been killed. REUTERS
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Why even Trump isn't buying Netanyahu's preposterous claim on Gaza's starvation crisis
Toddlers so thin they look otherworldly as they starve to death. Mothers too hungry to breastfeed them back to life. The injured from bombing too malnourished to heal. The medics, hooked up to drips themselves, too famished to even treat the hungry. This is Gaza, where a kilo of sugar costs $120. Where civilians describe being shot and bombed by the Israeli military when they tried to get supplies from aid convoys. Where one father-of-four told me he ended up under a mound of bodies — some alive, some injured, some dead - when he went to get a single bag of flour from a World Food Programme truck two weekends ago. Flour he had to abandon in the deadly scrum. It is unthinkable that in 2025, people - babies born after this nightmare even began - are dying from a famine manmade by an apparent ally. Nearly 150 people, including 88 babies, have died from malnutrition, according to the Palestinian health ministry. And that number will go up unless there is proper intervention now. The solution is simple: we need a ceasefire, and for Israel to allow unfettered access of aid to the entire Gaza Strip. Anything less than that will not stop more people from dying. A real solution is not sporadic airdrops (which experts say are dangerous, inefficient and expensive). It is not temporary humanitarian corridors. It is not 'tactical pauses.' It is not nebulous 'militarised' aid schemes. It is not corralling civilians into blasted corners of this hell and rewarding them with a bag of pasta. To treat a famine of this intensity, it needs a multidimensional humanitarian response on a massive scale. It needs specialised therapeutic food, medical intervention, it needs sustained access to supplies. Eventually it will need Gaza's agricultural sector, destroyed by Israel, to be rebuilt. And it will need those responsible for this to be held to account so it does not happen again. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, echoing his own military bodies, proclaimed on Sunday that there is 'no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This is despite ferocious criticism from world leaders, including his closest allies like Donald Trump and Keir Starmer, who are both supplying him the weapons to allow him to what his army is doing. Trump even said on Monday that it was 'real starvation' in Gaza adding, 'you can't fake that'. It also contradicts what his own ministers have, at different points, admitted is the policy. Day two of this war: then defence minister Yoav Gallant spelled it out. 'I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed,' he said, an action which was cited in the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued last November. "We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly,' he added. Last August extreme-right Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich bemoaned that 'No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.' Just this week National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir called the recent airdrops of food into Gaza 'a shame and disgrace.' 'I support starving Hamas in Gaza,' he added on X, an action that impossible to do without also starving the 2.3 million population and of course the remaining living hostages. The largest group representing the families of the hostages are in the streets begging for a ceasefire, so worried are they that their loved ones are also suffering these conditions. Israel has controlled what goes in and out of Gaza for a long time. As the occupying power it has an obligation to ensure that the civilian population gets food and medical supplies. It has maintained a substantial and unlawful blockade on Gaza since 2007 military take over by Hamas, according to respected rights groups and legal scholars. This is in part why well before this war erupted, medical officials have repeatedly told me Gaza was already lacking half the essential drugs list. Since Hamas's 7 October 2023 bloody attack on southern Israel - during which Israel says militants killed over 1200 people and took 250 captive - Israel has tightened that noose straggling the 2. 3 million-strong population. Respected groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war, which is war crime. Amnesty added in its report that their evidence shows Israel's continued use of starvation is 'part of its ongoing genocide'. Today two respected Israeli rights groups Physicians for Human Rights - Israel and B'tselem released reports with legal-medical analysis accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, pointing to the decimated of the healthcare system and the strangling of aid. The Israeli government vehemently denies this or that that Israel has commit any crimes in Gaza. It has rejected claims it has created famine or that there is even a hunger crisis at all. It maintains it allows aid into the Strip and blames any restrictions on Hamas for allegedly systematically stealing aid (although recent leaks have contradicted that). Netanyahu today accused the United Nations of lying. But the overwhelming body of evidence and testimony points to different reality. One that for the sake of humanity must change now.
Al-Ahram Weekly
4 days ago
- Health
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Israel kills 18 more starving aid-seekers in Gaza despite declaring 'humanitarian pause' - War on Gaza
Israel killed at least 18 starving Palestinians, including two children, on Sunday morning as they waited for food aid in Gaza—just hours after announcing a 'tactical pause' in its war on the Strip, medical sources told Palestinian news agency WAFA. The victims were struck by Israeli fire near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution centres in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, as well as in central Gaza. Earlier in the day, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported that Israeli occupation forces had killed 11 people and injured over 36 others in the past 24 hours in attacks targeting Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid. This brings the total number of Palestinians killed while seeking food to 1,132, with more than 7,521 others wounded. Gaza's hospitals also recorded six additional deaths from famine and malnutrition over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of such deaths to 133, including 87 children. Meanwhile, Israel continued its intense bombardment across the Strip, targeting residential homes and tents sheltering displaced people. In total, hospitals received 88 fatalities on Sunday—including 12 bodies recovered from under rubble—and 374 wounded. The ongoing massacres of aid-seekers come despite Israel's declaration of a "tactical pause" in military operations in parts of the Gaza Strip, ostensibly to allow the passage of United Nations (UN) aid convoys. The move follows mounting international outrage over mass starvation in the besieged enclave and the nearly 22-month-long war. According to the Israeli army, the pause applies only to areas where its forces are 'not currently active,' including Al-Mawasi, Deir al-Balah, and Gaza City. The pause is scheduled to run daily from 10:00am to 8:00pm. Israel added that 'designated secure routes' would remain open across the Strip to enable UN and NGO convoys to deliver food and medicine. However, it emphasized that military operations would continue elsewhere. In its latest update, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza has reached 59,821, with 144,851 wounded since 7 October 2023. Of that total, 8,657 have been killed and 32,810 injured since 18 March, when Israel unilaterally broke a two-month ceasefire with Hamas—brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US—resuming its genocidal war on Gaza. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
