The United Nations on Tuesday said women and children account for at least 56 percent of the thousands of people who have been killed in the Gaza war. The comments come amid criticism from Israel that the world body relies on the death toll communicated by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded.
This blog is no longer being updated. For more coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, please click here.
Summary:
- The United Nations said Tuesday that women and children are believed to make up at least 56 percent of those killed in Gaza since the start of the war.
- Israel’s army on Tuesday said rockets fired from Lebanon had killed a civilian on the Israeli side of the border.
- Israeli tanks pushed deeper into eastern Rafah on Tuesday morning, entering the neighbourhoods of Al-Jneina, Al-Salam and Al-Brazil, residents said. Around 450,000 Palestinians have been driven out of Rafah over the past week, UNRWA said.
- President Joe Biden's administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel in its war with Hamas as genocide, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday.
- At least 35,173 Palestinians have been killed and 79,061 wounded in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Some 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks and 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.
Yesterday's key developments:
- The United States does not believe that genocide is occurring in Gaza but Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, President Joe Biden's top national security official said Monday.
- Israeli tanks, under cover from heavy fire from air and ground, pushed further into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, residents and Hamas media said, while air strikes hammered Rafah in the south.
- An all-out Israeli offensive on the Gaza city of Rafah would provoke "anarchy" without eliminating Hamas, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday, as Washington stepped up a pressure campaign against such an assault.
- Israel’s leaders commemorated Memorial Day on Monday, a usually sombre holiday that this year was almost entirely absorbed by the ongoing war in Gaza.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters, AP)
