Gaza's death toll just passed 25,000. For the survivors, hunger is the biggest threat

As Gaza's death toll passes 25,000 and the air strikes and street warfare continues, residents are as much at risk of famine as they are of violence.

The majority of those killed in Gaza were women and children. Source: DPA / picture alliance

Key Points

• More than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out.
• Israel said its troops had cleared much of northern Gaza of Hamas' military network.
• UN Secretary-General António Guterres denounced Israel for "heartbreaking" deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The toll of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in October has passed 25,000, Gaza health officials say, while Israeli attacks and street battles rage across the Hamas-run enclave.

Israeli forces and Hamas fighters clashed in several places, from Jabalia in the north to Khan Younis in the south, the focus of recent Israeli operations.

Israel said its troops had cleared much of northern Gaza of Hamas' military network and more than a million residents of that part of the enclave have moved south to flee the bombardments.

However fighting has continued in the Jabalia refugee camp and other areas around Gaza City.

Gaza's health ministry said 178 Palestinians were killed in the past 24 hours, one of the deadliest days of the war so far.

Israel's military said one soldier was killed in fighting.

Israel has bombarded Gaza since Hamas' 7 October attack in which more than 1,200 people, including an estimated 30 children, were killed and over 200 hostages taken, according to the Israeli government.

More than 25,105 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, the majority of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

It does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths but says most of those killed have been civilians.

The 7 October attack was a significant escalation in the long-standing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Civilians killed on 'unprecedented scale'

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday denounced Israel for what he called the "heartbreaking" deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

"Israel's military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as secretary-general," Guterres said at a summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

Displaced Palestinian youths carry food rations they received at a makeshift tent camp in Rafah near the border with Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip. Source: Getty / AFP

The Israeli military has said it takes steps to avoid civilian casualties but it accuses Hamas of operating in densely populated areas and using civilians as human shields, a charge the Islamist group denies.

Most of the enclave's 2.3 million people have been displaced from their homes and those who remain face dire conditions.

"We struggle to survive bombs, but frankly we try to survive hunger more. Finding food for the family, for the children, has become a more challenging adventure than surviving war," Amer, 32, a father of three from northern Gaza, told Reuters.

The price of flour, for example, has surged along with other food items that are hard to come by in the already impoverished territory.

"Amid the famine threatening residents of northern Gaza, the people began to grind what is available to make flour, starting with corn and reaching to animal food," Anas Al-Sharif, a Palestinian freelance journalist reporting from northern Gaza, posted on X.

Israel's army said 15 Palestinian gunmen were killed in the north, as well as a number of militants in Khan Younis - reports Hamas dismissed.

Palestinians said fierce fighting has raged in Jabalia for the past three days.

Along Gaza's southern coast, witnesses said Israeli naval vessels shelled the beach; while in the southern city of Rafa, three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a car.

Another car was hit in Gaza City, killing three people, health officials said. Violence also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas says the US is ignoring Palestinian suffering and deaths while supporting Israeli actions financially and militarily.

In a statement on Sunday, it called its 7 October assault a "necessary step".

"It was a defensive act in the frame of getting rid of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming the Palestinian rights and on the way for liberation and independence," Hamas said.

Hamas is a Palestinian political and military group, which has governed the Gaza Strip since the most recent elections in 2006.

Its stated aim is to establish a Palestinian state and stop the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, illegal under international law.

Hamas in its entirety is listed as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and seven other countries, including Australia.

In 2021 the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories dating back to 2014, including the recent attacks of both Israel and Hamas.