Extract from ABC News
In short:
The death toll in Gaza from Israel's offensive has surpassed 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
It says a total of 40,005 people have been killed and 92,401 injured since October 7, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — most of them civilians — and took roughly 250 hostages to Gaza.
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There are a number of victims still under the rubble and on the streets who emergency and civil defence agencies have not been able to reach, the ministry added.
The death toll in Gaza from Israel's offensive has surpassed 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
It says a total 40,005 people have been killed and 92,401 injured since October 7, when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — most of them civilians — and took roughly 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The fighting has also killed 329 Israeli soldiers
The ministry says 40 bodies were brought in to Gaza hospitals over the past 24 hours.
There are a number of victims still under the rubble and on the streets who emergency and civil defence agencies have not been able to reach, it added.
The health ministry's numbers do not differentiate between civilians and fighters but it does say the majority of those dead are children, women or elderly people.
It earlier announced the death toll from Israeli attacks in the Occupied West Bank had risen to 632 since October 7, including 147 children, seven women, and seven elderly people.
Tiers of graves are stacked deep underground in a bloated Gaza cemetery, where Sa’di Baraka spends his days hacking at the earth, making room for more dead.
"Sometimes we make graves on top of graves," he said.
The Gaza government media office on Wednesday said the IDF's closure of the Rafah border crossing had led the deaths of more than a thousand injured and sick people and has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the strip.
Thursday's announcement came during new efforts to broker a ceasefire to the conflict, now in its 11th month.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt were to meet with an Israeli delegation in Qatar.
News agency Reuters reported Hamas— which Australia lists as a terrorist organisation — would not directly participate in the talks, but may meet with mediators afterwards.
Day-old twins killed as father picks up birth certificates
Gazan father Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan had just picked up birth certificates for his newly-born twins on Tuesday local time when he found out they had been killed.
The Gaza apartment where they were sheltering, along with his wife and her mother, was hit by an Israeli strike.
Mr Al-Qumsan waved the laminated documents, supposed to signify rare joy in the besieged Palestinian enclave, while he wept at the morgue where their bodies were brought.
"My wife is gone, my two babies and my mother-in-law," he said, recalling the devastating phone call.
"I was told it's a tank shell on the apartment they were in, in a house we were displaced to."
He and others carried his boy and girl, Asser and Ayssel, who were wrapped in white shrouds.
Following the death of the twins, the ministry on Tuesday said that a total of 115 children were born and killed during the 10-month war.
Nearly half of those survived for less than a month, and only five lived as long as eight months, it said.
"[The infants] lived brief moments of life before their souls were lost under the weight of bombing and aggression," it said.
US approves $20 billion military package
The death toll also comes as the US approved the sale of $US20 billion in fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel on Tuesday local time.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken approved the sale of F-15 jets and equipment worth nearly $US19 billion along with tank cartridges valued at $US774 million, explosive mortar cartridges valued at over $US60 million and army vehicles worth $US583 million, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The Boeing F-15 fighter jets were expected to take years to produce, and deliveries were expected to begin in 2029.
Other equipment would begin delivery in 2026, according to the Pentagon.
An expert on the process said some deliveries could be even earlier than 2026.
"The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defence capability," the Pentagon said.
The US, Israel's biggest ally and weapons supplier, has sent Israel more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the Gaza war in October, US officials told Reuters in June.
Wires/ABC
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