Gaza war toll tops 67,000 after two years

A senior Gaza health official said that more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 170,000 wounded after two years of war, as hospitals struggle to cope with the scale of destruction and a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Director of the health information centre at Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Zaher al-Wahidi, said in Khan Younis that the conflict had devastated the enclave’s health system, with dozens of hospitals destroyed or forced to shut down.

"More than 38 hospitals operating in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed or targeted. More than 25 hospitals were put out of service, and 13 hospitals remained partially operational," said al-Wahidi.

According to Gaza health authorities, nearly a third of those killed were under 18.

Israel has repeatedly denied permission to transfer incubators from an evacuated hospital in North Gaza, a U.N. children's agency official said, adding to strain on overcrowded hospitals further south where newborn babies are now sharing oxygen masks.

Two years of war between Israel and Hamas has increased stress and malnourishment among pregnant mothers, leading to a rise in premature and underweight babies who the World Health Organization says now account for a fifth of all Gaza newborns.

Over the past month an Israeli assault on Gaza City in northern Gaza has shut hospitals in that area, worsening overcrowding in hospitals that remain open in the south.

The U.N. humanitarian office said that Israel had either denied or impeded 45% of its 8,000 requested humanitarian missions within Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

UNICEF has called for the evacuation of ill and premature babies remaining in northern Gaza hospitals. The WHO transferred three of them last week to a hospital further south, but said one died before the mission. Only 14 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are currently even partially functional, the WHO says.

A U.N. commission of inquiry last month assessed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel called the finding biased and "scandalous."

Israel has regularly said it takes steps to avoid hitting civilians. Israel says it is seeking to eliminate militants from Hamas, which attacked southern Israel from Gaza in 2023, and free hostages still held by the group.

Hamas and Israel began indirect negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on key issues such as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas' disarmament.

The talks on the U.S. president Donald Trump's plan are widely seen as the most promising yet for ending a war that has devastated Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.