Pentagon estimates that “more than 25,000” Palestinian women and children have been killed in Gaza

2024-02-29 20:31:12

More than “25,000” Palestinian women and children have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said on Thursday (29). Earlier, Hamas announced that 30,000 people had died in the enclave. The UN Secretary-General condemned the deaths of around a hundred people during a food distribution in Gaza this Thursday.

Published on: 02/29/2024 – 21:31

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“It’s more than 25,000,” Lloyd Austin told a parliamentary committee in response to a question about the number of women and children killed in the war, launched in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israeli soil.

The Hamas Health Ministry announced on Thursday that “more than 30,000” people have been killed in Israeli military operations in Gaza since the start of the war.

This threshold was reached as the mediating countries, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, strive to achieve a truce in the fighting before the start of Ramadan, which begins on March 10 or 11.

The war was triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack launched by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, in southern Israel, which caused the death of at least 1,160 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report produced by from official Israeli data.

In retaliation, Israel promised to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization. His army relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip and launched a ground offensive on October 27 in the north of the territory, which gradually extended south.

Killed for food

The UN Secretary General “condemns” the events that led to the deaths of around a hundred people, according to Hamas, during a distribution of food aid that turned into chaos in Gaza, his spokesman said.

“We don’t know exactly what happened. But if these people were killed by Israeli gunfire, if they were crushed by crowds, or run over by trucks, these are acts of violence, in a way, linked to this conflict”, declared Stéphane Dujarric, specifying that there was no UN presence during this distribution. of help.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was called on Thursday and Washington referred to a “desperate” situation in Gaza and called on Israel to “protect” the distribution of aid.

(With AFP)