Palestinian death toll surpasses 46,000, says Gaza Health Ministry

The death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has climbed above 46,000, the Gaza Health Ministry has said.

The ministry said 46,006 Palestinians had been killed and 109,378 wounded in the ongoing 15-month conflict, as it updated its toll on Thursday.

Women and children made up more than half of the fatalities, the ministry has said, but it does not say how many of the dead were fighters or civilians.

The Israeli military said it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israel has also repeatedly struck what it says are militants hiding in shelters and hospitals, often killing women and children.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250.

Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza.

Israeli authorities believe at least a third of them were killed in the initial attack or have died in captivity.

The war has flattened large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its 2.3 million people, with many forced to flee multiple times.

In recent weeks, Israel and Hamas have appeared to inch closer to an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of hostages.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said this week that a deal was “very close” and he hoped to complete it before handing over American diplomacy to the incoming Trump administration.

But he and other US officials have expressed similar optimism on several occasions over the past year, only to see the indirect talks stall.

“What we are living is not a life. Nobody could bear the situation we’re experiencing for a single day,” Munawar al-Bik, a displaced woman, told The Associated Press this week.

“We wake up at night to the sounds of men crying, because of the bad situation,” she said.

“The situation is unbearable. We have no energy left: we want it to end today.”

Ms Al-Bik spoke on a dusty road in the southern city of Khan Younis next to a destroyed building. Behind her, a sea of makeshift tents filled with displaced families stretched into the distance.

On Thursday, dozens of people took part in funeral prayers outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for people killed in Israeli strikes the day before.

Palestinian health officials said Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people in Gaza on Wednesday, including three infants — among them a one-week-old — and two women.