Gaza genocide: Death toll rises to nearly 62,000 as thousands of missing declared dead

The government media office in the Gaza Strip has raised to 61,709 the death toll from Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged territory.

Salama Marouf, the media office’s head, released the figure on Sunday by adding 14,222 who are missing and now presumed dead to 47,487 bodies that were already transferred to hospitals. 

Speaking to reporters at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, he said the victims included 17,881 children, among them 214 newborn babies.

He also noted that over 38,000 Palestinian children were orphaned by the Israeli offensive against Gaza.

“More than 6,000 Palestinians were detained by the Israeli forces and dozens of them were tortured to death in detention,” he added.

“Over 2 million Palestinians were forcibly displaced, with many forced to relocate more than 25 times amid absence of essential services.”

Meanwhile, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned that the needs in Gaza are “immense.”

“Any hope of recovery will require a full-scale humanitarian response with all agencies coming together,” it said in an X post.

This means 8% of the population of Gaza were direct victims of the genocidal campaign.

Israel committed over 9,260 massacres against families, including more than 2,090 families that were entirely wiped out from the civil registry.

The regime killed at least 4,880 families, leaving only one member in each.

More than 17,880 children were among the martyrs, including 214 infants who were born and killed during the aggression.

Over 38,000 children became orphaned, including 17,000 who lost both parents. The regime’s troops killed over 12,300 women.

More than 1,150 medical crews were also killed. Israel slaughtered at least 205 journalists, 194 civil defense personnel, 736 aid workers, and over 3,500 government personnel. 

The Israeli campaign of genocide has generated losses that exceed $50 billion in various sectors, and these estimates are preliminary and according to what the field teams were able to count and estimate.

In the housing sector, 450,000 housing units were damaged, including 170,000 units destroyed, 80,000 severely damaged, and 200,000 partially damaged.

In the medical sector, Israel has destroyed, burned, and vandalized 34 hospitals, most notably the Shifa Medical Complex, in addition to 80 health centers, 212 health institutions, and 191 ambulances. The damage exceeds $3 billion.

In the education sector, Over 1,660 educational facilities were damaged, including 927 schools, universities, kindergartens, and educational centers that were destroyed, and 734 educational facilities that were partially damaged.

The Israeli forces killed 12,800 students and about 800 educational staff and deprived 785,000 students of education.

In the government sector, 216 government headquarters and facilities were destroyed, and 60 headquarters were severely damaged, and the damage and losses exceed one billion dollars.

More bodies retrieved

Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported that teams from the Palestinian Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip have reportedly removed the remains of 20 Palestinians killed by Israel during its genocide in the blockaded territory.

The bodies were recovered from piles of sand in an empty land near a destroyed shelter school in the northern Gaza town of Sheikh Zayed, according to the report.

Some bodies were found in a decomposed and dismembered state, while others were reduced to a few bones.

Israel unleashed its bloody Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Israel was forced to agree to a Gaza ceasefire after the regime failed to achieve its objectives in the besieged territory during a 15-month-long genocidal war.

The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of freeing captives and eliminating Hamas despite killing a shocking number of Palestinians.

It accepted Hamas’s longstanding negotiation terms under the Gaza truce, which began on January 19.

Gaza ceasefire takes effect after Israel launches deadly strikes on Gaza

The planned ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian Hamas resistance group and Israel has taken effect after deadly strikes by the usurping regime on the Gaza Strip.

Israel violates truce

Since then, Israel has violated the ceasefire agreement several times.

A Palestinian citizen was killed on Sunday evening by the bullets of the occupation forces in the town of al-Shawka, east of Rafah city, south of the Gaza Strip.

Additionally, a Palestinian woman succumbed to injuries she suffered after the regime’s military bombed her family’s house in Rafah.

A Palestinian girl also died of her wounds sustained during the Israeli aggression against Gaza.

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