The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip announced on Wednesday that the death toll from the Israeli war of extermination, which has been ongoing since October 2023, has risen to 67,938 martyrs and 170,169 wounded.
The ministry said in its daily report that hospitals across the Gaza Strip received 25 martyrs and 35 injured in the past 24 hours. It noted that 16 of the martyrs were pulled from the rubble, while another died from previous injuries.
She added that a number of victims remain under the rubble and on the streets, and that ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them due to Israeli restrictions on movement.
The ministry also announced the receipt of the bodies of 45 Palestinians held by the Israeli occupation forces, confirming that they remain unidentified and their names have not yet been added to the official statistics.
In this context, two Palestinians were martyred as a result of Israeli shelling targeting the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), which stated that their bodies were transferred to the Baptist Hospital, amid reports of other martyrs at the same site.
Meanwhile, the agency also reported that Israeli occupation forces arrested 24 Palestinians during separate raids in the southern and eastern Gaza Strip, including nine from the town of Al-Fakhari, east of Khan Yunis, and 15 from the town of Al-Nasr, northeast of Rafah.
Israel continues to prevent the entry of aid
In addition, Israel has continued to prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza since March 2, despite the ceasefire agreement in effect since last Friday.
The UN agency confirmed in a statement that the Israeli ban remains in effect despite the agreement, noting that it has thousands of trucks loaded with food and shelter aid sufficient to cover the needs of Gaza's residents for three months.
The statement added that UNRWA is the largest field relief agency in Gaza, with more than 12,000 employees and sufficient shelter supplies for 1.3 million Palestinians amid the widespread devastation caused by the war.
For its part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stated that it does not have data on the number of aid trucks that have entered Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, despite the agreement stipulating that 600 trucks be allowed in daily.
Meanwhile, the Government Media Office in Gaza stated that only 173 trucks have entered the Strip since last Friday, noting that this quantity "does not even meet the minimum daily needs of citizens."
Meanwhile, Egyptian media reported that 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid had already crossed into Gaza on Wednesday through the Kerem Shalom crossing, while hundreds of other trucks await entry after undergoing inspection and verification by the Israeli military. Al-Qahira News Channel reported that among the trucks were containers loaded with fuel and gas.
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted two sources as saying that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip will reopen on Thursday to allow people to cross, coinciding with the return of a European Union monitoring mission to oversee the crossing. The sources did not provide details on the nature of the restrictions that might be imposed on those leaving.
After two years of Israeli genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the first phase of a ceasefire agreement came into effect on Friday afternoon.
The agreement is based on a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump and reached by Hamas and Israel following indirect negotiations in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, with the participation of Ankara, Cairo, and Doha, and under US supervision.
