Gaza deaths since October ceasefire surpass 1,000, ministry says

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Hamas and Israel reached a US-brokered ceasefire agreement in October, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The toll points to the fragility of a deal that reduced major combat but has not ended attacks or eased Gaza’s humanitarian emergency.

The ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli attacks have killed 1,005 Palestinians since the agreement was reached. Medical Aid for Palestinians said the milestone came as families who had been told the worst of the war had passed were continuing to bury relatives.

“We mourn as Gaza reaches yet another tragic milestone … Thousands more people who were told the worst was over are still burying their loved ones,” Fikr Shalltoot, the group’s Gaza director, said in comments reported by Al Jazeera.

The ceasefire has curbed the largest-scale fighting, but the parties have not agreed on the second phase of the arrangement, according to Al Jazeera. That phase was expected to deal with two of the most contested issues: an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.

Israeli forces have increased their footprint in the territory since October, Al Jazeera reported, saying Israel now controls 64 percent of the Gaza Strip. The agreement had envisaged Israeli control over 53 percent of the enclave, according to the report.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said dozens of families in eastern Gaza City fled last Friday after Israeli forces placed yellow cement blocks marking a westward expansion of the so-called Yellow Line. The line has become a marker of Israeli military control inside Gaza.

Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told Al Jazeera earlier this month that the group would not surrender its weapons at this stage. He said the future of Hamas’s arsenal would be decided only after broader talks with other Palestinian factions.

The agreement was also expected to create space for rebuilding Gaza, including its shattered health system. OCHA says only 20 of Gaza’s 37 hospitals are partly operating, and no hospital in the territory is fully functional.

Shalltoot criticized international leaders for treating the agreement as a substitute for concrete relief. “As the bombs continued to fall and Gaza remained under a near-total siege, global leaders convinced themselves a piece of paper could substitute for accountability, for a lifted blockade, for medicine reaching the people who needed it,” she said.

She added that access to Gaza remains severely limited and accused aid restrictions of being used against a starving population. Israel has not been quoted in the reports cited by Al Jazeera as responding to those comments.

Since Israel’s war in Gaza began on October 23, more than 73,000 people have been killed, according to figures reported by Al Jazeera. The outlet also reported that most of Gaza has been reduced to rubble and nearly 1.9 million people have been displaced.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.