Gaza death toll over 64,000, health officials say

Hamas and Israel stick to their mutually exclusive demands for ending the conflict.

- WAFAA SHURAFA, KAREEM CHEHAYEB AND JULIA FRANKEL

ABOOD ABUSALAMA Middle East Images DOCTORS treat an injured child at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as Israel continued its offensive Thursday.

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in the nearly two-year war in the Gaza Strip, local health officials said Thursday, as Hamas and Israel reiterated their incompatible demands for ending the fighting sparked by the militant group's 2023 attack.

Israeli strikes killed 28 people, mostly women and children, overnight and into Thursday, according to hospitals, as Israel pressed ahead with its offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City. Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, the military spokesman, said that Israeli forces control 40% of the city and that the operation would expand “in the coming days.”

In the occupied West Bank, Israelis established a new settlement in a Palestinian city, according to an anti-settlement monitoring group.

The latest strikes came as Israeli troops were operating in parts of Gaza City with plans to take over all of it. The most populous Palestinian city is home to around a million people, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

Shifa Hospital in Gaza City received 25 bodies, including nine children and six women, after Israeli strikes hit tents housing displaced people, according to hospital records. Among those killed was a 10-day-old baby. Three more people were killed in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.