DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Hospitals in the Gaza Strip received the remains of 51 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes in the past 24 hours, the local Health Ministry said Sunday, bringing the Palestinian death toll from the 18-month-old Israel-Hamas war to 52,243.
Israel ended its ceasefire with Hamas by launching a surprise bombardment on March 18 and has been carrying out daily waves of strikes. Ground forces have expanded a buffer zone and encircled the southern city of Rafah; they now control around half of the territory.
Israel has also sealed off the territory’s 2 million Palestinians from all imports, including food and medicine, for nearly 60 days. Aid groups say supplies will soon run out and that thousands of children are malnourished.
The overall death toll includes nearly 700 bodies for which the documentation process was recently completed, the ministry said in its latest update. The daily toll includes bodies retrieved from the rubble after earlier strikes.
Israeli strikes killed another 17 people after the ministry’s update. Eight of them, including three children and two women, were killed in a strike on a tent in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. A strike in the central city of Deir al-Balah killed four people, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, and another on a tent there killed four children and a man, the hospital said.
Israeli authorities say the renewed offensive and tightened blockade are aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages abducted in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed and all the hostages are returned.
Hamas says it will release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 believed to be alive — only in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the now-defunct ceasefire reached in January.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and took 251 people hostage. Most have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says women and children make up most of the Palestinian deaths.
