Death toll in Gaza rises to nearly 23,000 amid Israel's war on Hamas

Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that nearly 23,000 people have been killed amid Israel's war on Hamas. Nearly 2 million people have been displaced amid the war.

"The Israeli aggression toll rises to 22,835 dead and 58,416 injuries since October 7," the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Saturday that its first responders were unable to reach a pregnant woman trapped with disabled and elderly people because of Israel's occupation forces.

Videos the human rights group posted online showed that its volunteers were treating injured civilians under darkness using only flashlights. Meanwhile, at least nine people were killed in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.

"We have completed the dismantling of Hamas' military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement, strengthening the barrier and the defense components along the security fence," Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson for Israel's military, said Saturday.

"Now, we are focusing on dismantling Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip. We will do this differently, thoroughly, based on the lessons we have learned from the fighting so far."

Israel's mission to destroy Hamas' military framework in northern Gaza has been criticized globally as an attack on civilian infrastructure, a possible war crime and the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes.

It was not immediately clear how many refugees have been internally displaced in Gaza as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which tracks the number of people displaced from the war in Ukraine, does not appear to track Palestinian refugees.

A second U.N. agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, considers Palestinian refugees as anyone who lost their homes or livelihood because of Israel's war for independence in 1948, when nearly a million Palestinians were removed from their houses, raped or killed. Under this definition, there are 5.9 million refugees.

Data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a third U.N. agency, shows that 1.9 million people have been internally displaced amid the latest escalation of the conflict.

OCHA data shows that between Jan. 1, 2008, and Oct. 7, at least 6,423 Palestinians had been killed. More than 1,000 of those were in the West Bank, where Hamas -- considered to be a terrorist organization by Israel -- does not operate.

At least 237 Palestinians were killed in 2023 alone ahead of the Oct. 7 attack.