Palestinian death toll passes 64,000, say health officials

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in the nearly two-year war in the Gaza Strip, local health officials have said.

The news came as Hamas and Israel reiterated their incompatible demands for ending the fighting sparked by the militant group’s 2023 attack.

Local hospitals said Israeli strikes killed 28 people, mostly women and children, overnight and into Thursday, as Israel pressed ahead with the initial stages of its offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City.

Hamas released a statement late on Wednesday saying that it was open to returning all 48 hostages it still holds — around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive — in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of Gaza, the opening of border crossings and a start to the challenge of rebuilding Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office dismissed the offer as “spin” and said that the war would continue until all the hostages were returned, Hamas was disarmed and Israel had full security control of the territory, with civilian administration delegated to others.

Talks on a temporary ceasefire that would have seen some of the hostages returned broke down last month when US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff walked away, blaming Hamas.

The militant group later accepted a proposal that Hamas and Arab mediators said was almost identical to an earlier one accepted by Israel, but there has been no public indication that talks have resumed.

The latest strikes came as Israeli troops were operating on the outskirts of Gaza City, in the initial stages of a planned offensive to take over the most populous Palestinian city, home to around a million people, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

Shifa Hospital in Gaza City received 25 bodies, including nine children and six women, after Israeli strikes hit tents housing displaced people, according to hospital records. Among those killed was a 10-day-old baby. Another three people were killed in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying militants are entrenched in densely populated areas.

Gaza’s health ministry said that 64,231 Palestinians had been killed since the start of the war. The latest update includes around 400 who were presumed missing but whose deaths it said had been confirmed. It does not say how many of those killed in the war were militants or civilians. It says women and children make up around half the dead.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. Its figures are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by UN agencies and many independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in their attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023. Most have since been released in ceasefires or other agreements.

Meanwhile, in Rome, Pope Leo and his top diplomats told Israel’s president on Thursday that a two-state solution was the “only way out of the war”, as the Vatican called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages and entry of humanitarian aid to the most affected areas.

The Vatican issued an unusually detailed statement following Leo’s meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog who, for his part, said he had asked the pope to meet with families of the hostages, and called for intensified international efforts to secure their release.

The audience marked the first by history’s first American pope with the Israeli head of state.

The Vatican has tried to maintain its tradition of diplomatic neutrality throughout the war, calling for the return of hostages while denouncing Israel’s attacks against civilians in Gaza.

But both Pope Francis before, and Leo since his election in May, have voiced mounting outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza, with the late pope calling for an investigation to determine if they constituted genocide.