MORE THAN 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, the region’s health ministry has said.
The latest overall toll for Palestinians killed in the conflict came after at least 79 people died overnight across the Gaza Strip, the health ministry said.
In a previous investigation, the Associated Press found that ministry’s counts in previous conflicts have held up to UN scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies.
While mediators say a truce deal between Israel and Hamas could be just days away, aid agencies have raised serious concerns of a looming famine in Gaza’s north.
Children have died “due to malnutrition, dehydration and widespread famine” at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the health ministry said.
Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been seeking a six-week pause in the conflict sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which in response vowed to eliminate the Palestinian Islamist group that rules in Gaza.
Negotiators are hoping a truce can begin by the start of Ramadan, the holy Muslim month that kicks off 10 or 11 March, depending on the lunar calendar.
The proposals reportedly include the release of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
Short of the complete withdrawal Hamas has called for, AFP is reporting that a source from the group said the deal might see Israeli forces leave “cities and populated areas”, allowing the return of some displaced Palestinians and humanitarian relief.
US President Joe Biden is “pushing all of us to try to get this agreement over the finish line”, said his Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
However, senior Hamas official Basem Naim told Al Jazeera that there is still a long way to go because an agreement could be reached.
“The gap is still wide. We have to discuss a lot of points with the mediators,” Naim, the head of political and international relations for Hamas, said yesterday.
He said the Biden administration’s optimistic view was not “related to the reality on the ground” and has more to do with domestic political considerations in the US election.
The crucial southern Gaza city of Rafah is the main entry point for aid crossing the border from neighbouring Egypt.
But the World Food Programme (WFP) said no humanitarian group had been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a month, accusing Israel of blocking access.
Neighbouring Jordan has coordinated efforts to air-drop supplies over southern Gaza.
“If nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza,” the World Food Programme’s deputy executive director Carl Skau said.
"#Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world. One child in every six under the age of two is acutely malnourished"-@WFP Deputy Executive Director, Carl Skau pic.twitter.com/UICCL8RBNN
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) February 27, 2024
Israeli officials have denied blocking supplies, and the army yesterday said “50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid” had made it to northern Gaza in recent days.
The current conflict was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took about 250 hostages, 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 31 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has left hundreds of thousands displaced, with nearly 1.5 million people now packed in Rafah.
Israel has repeatedly threatened a ground offensive on Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying a truce would only delay it, as such an operation was needed for “total victory” over Hamas.
Egypt – which borders Rafah – says an assault on the overcrowded city would have “catastrophic repercussions”.
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