Israel has revised the death toll from the October 1 Hamas attack on its territory from 400,1 to 200,7 after identifying bodies as those of the Islamist movement's men, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said Friday.
The Israeli authorities have "updated" the death toll because they now believe that "many of the bodies that had not been identified" are those of people who participated in "the Hamas terror attack, and not Israeli victims," Haiat said.
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The updated death toll of 1,200, mostly civilians killed on the day of the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, was used in a Foreign Ministry statement on Friday. "Hamas terrorists murdered about 1,200 people in cold blood and kidnapped 240 of them, including babies, children, women and the elderly," he said.
A complex task of identification
Since October 7 and the attack on a scale and violence not seen since the creation of Israel in 1948, the Israeli authorities have been carrying out a complex task of identifying the bodies found in various places in southern Israel. The previous death toll of 1,400 was established gradually in the week following the attacks and has remained stable since then.
For more than a month, Israel has declared a war to "eradicate" Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. The relentless Israeli bombardment of the territory has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians, including more than 4,500 children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
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