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 Thursday.
“It's more than 25,000,” he told a parliamentary committee in response to a question on the toll of women and children killed in the war, launched in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israeli soil. .
The Hamas health ministry announced earlier Thursday that "more than 30,000" people have been killed in Israeli military operations in Gaza since the start of the war.
Difficult negotiations for the truce
This threshold is reached as the mediating countries, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, strive to obtain a truce in the fighting before the start of Ramadan, which begins on the evening of March 10 or 11.
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The war was sparked on October 7 by an unprecedented attack launched by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel, which caused the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a count. from AFP based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers, along with the United States and the European Union, to be a terrorist organization.
His army relentlessly shelled the Gaza Strip and launched a ground offensive on October 27 in the north of the territory, which gradually extended to the South.