Gaza death toll surpasses 70,000 amid continued Israeli attacks

GAZA STRIP

The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 70,000 since the Israel-Hamas war began, Gaza’s Health Ministry has said, while a hospital announced that Israeli fire killed two Palestinian children in the territory's south.

The toll has continued to rise after the latest ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10. Israel still carries out strikes in response to what it has called violations of the truce and bodies from earlier in the war are being recovered from the rubble.

The Health Ministry said the Palestinian toll is now 70,100.

Staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies of the children in southern Gaza, said the brothers, ages 8 and 11, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila.

Israel's military said it killed two people who crossed into an Israeli-controlled area, “conducted suspicious activities” and approached troops. The military said it also killed another person in a separate but similar incident in the south.

At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

A U.S. blueprint outlining the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by more than two years of war, is still in the early stages. The plan to secure and govern the territory authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.

UN watchdog calls for probe over Gaza 'torture' claims

Meanwhile, a U.N. committee urged Israel to set up an independent investigatory commission to probe claims of torture of Palestinians and warned the situation had "gravely intensified" since the start of the Gaza war.

The United Nations Committee against Torture said it was "deeply concerned about reports indicating a de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment" in Israel.

The committee, whose 10 independent experts monitor how countries implement an international convention against torture, stressed that it "unequivocally condemned the attack perpetrated by Hamas and other groups on Oct. 7, 2023, against Israel.”

But in a report published after a regular review of Israel, it "also expressed its deep concern over the disproportionate nature of Israel's response to these attacks.”