On a day when Israel’s army reported more than 300 new strikes within 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll had surged above 5,000, around 40 per cent of them children.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said Monday that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign more than two weeks ago.

Alarm has surged about the spiralling humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack that, Israeli officials say, killed more than 1,400 people who were gunned down, stabbed or burnt by the Islamist militants. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages.

On a day when Israel’s army reported more than 300 new strikes within 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll had surged above 5,000, around 40 per cent of them children.

Thousands of buildings have been destroyed and more than one million people displaced in the territory that has been under siege and largely deprived of water, food and other basic supplies.

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