The Palestinian Health Ministry says women and children comprise 70 percent of nearly 18,800 people killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s bloody aggression against the besieged territory.
In a statement on Sunday, the Ramallah-based ministry said the death toll covers a period of 70 days between October 7 and December 15.
More than 300 health sector workers, 86 journalists, 135 employees of the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and approximately 35 civil defense workers are among the death toll, it added.
The ministry also said that over 51,100 Palestinians have been wounded in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, with scores of other people unaccounted for.
It further noted that only eight out of 36 Gaza hospitals are partially functional, and that occupancy rates have soared to 206 percent in inpatient departments and 250 percent in intensive care units.
‘Israel wants to eliminate Gaza’s health sector’
Meanwhile, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said that Israel is trying to “eliminate” the Palestinian territory’s health care system through its ongoing attacks on hospitals.
“What the occupation is doing is part of the scenario that began in northern Gaza from the Shifa complex,” he said in a statement to the Qatar-based television network Al Jazeera.
“Targeting Nasser medical complex is part of the occupation’s policy to eliminate the health sector and would bring down the health system in the southern Gaza Strip.”
The Israeli military has attacked Gaza hospitals and killed many Palestinians there in violation of international law.
The regime’s army has alleged that medical facilities in the Gaza Strip are being used as a command and control center by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group, but it has provided no proof to substantiate its claim.
UNRWA chief: Gaza situation ‘unprecedented, staggering’
Also on Sunday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini raised the alarm at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
“By any account, I haven’t seen anything of this scale,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera.
“Everything is absolutely unprecedented and staggering… In 40 days, more women and children killed than the number of civilians in the Ukraine war.”
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to 2.3 million Palestinians living there.
About 90 percent of Gaza’s population have been displaced within the territory, where UN agencies say there is no safe place.
