Gaza death toll from Israeli attacks nears 27,500 UN humanitarian convoy under fire

At least 27,478 Palestinians have been killed and 66,835 others injured in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on February 5.

“Most of the victims were children and women,” the ministry said in a statement, Anadolu reports.

According to the statement, at least 113 people have been killed and 205 others injured in Israeli attacks in the last 24 hours alone.

“Many of the victims are still trapped under rubble and on the road and rescuers can’t reach them,” it added.

Meanwhile, Israel's defence minister said on February 5 that the army's next target in the Gaza Strip will be the southern city of Rafah, claiming it is the last remaining stronghold of the Palestinian group Hamas.

Gallant said Hamas fighters and leaders are hiding in Rafah.

"We will also reach the areas where we have not yet fought in the centre of the Gaza Strip and in the south, and especially the last remaining (stronghold) of Hamas in Rafah," he said.

More than 1.3 million people are now said to be living in Rafah and the surrounding area, most of them displaced from other parts of Gaza.

Several rights groups have warned against any Israeli military offensive in Rafah, which would claim the lives of many people there.

Gallant reiterated that at the end of the fighting, Hamas will not be able to rule Gaza again.

He described the army's ground operation in Gaza as "one of the most complex and complicated in the history of wars."

Hamas is yet to comment on Gallant's statements.

Furthermore, a UN humanitarian convoy carrying food aid was hit by Israeli naval gunfire while trying to cross into the northern Gaza Strip on February 5, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner general, said that although the agency notifies Israel of all aid convoys and coordinates with authorities on their movements, they continue to come under fire. He added that civilians and the convoys delivering humanitarian aid to them must be protected at all times.

In a message posted on social media platform X, Tom White, the director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, said that no one was injured in the attack on Monday.

Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab condemned the incident, stating on X: “Israel is still acting as a rogue state or above international law. It has done everything contrary to what the International Court of Justice demanded.”

Footage shared by UNRWA of a truck that was targeted circulated widely on social media.

“We cannot deliver humanitarian aid under fire,” the agency said. “Safe and sustainable humanitarian access is urgently needed everywhere, including to the north of Gaza.”

Moreover, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has carried out one more attack on the city of Eilat in Israel in support of the innocent people of Gaza.

The Palestinian Sama news agency quoted a statement by the umbrella group of Iraqi resistance factions that said the port city of Eilat on the Red Sea was targeted by drones on February 5 night.

“The Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, continuing the approach of resistance against the occupying forces and in response to the Zionist regime's massacre of our people in Gaza”, the groups said in the statement.

The Islamic Resistance also affirmed that it will continue targeting enemy positions.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in which Tel Aviv says nearly 1,200 Israelis were killed.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.