Tel Aviv – Israeli military strikes killed more than 600 people in the Gaza Strip in the first 10 days of 2025, pushing the death toll over 46,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian territory, and one new estimate suggest it could be much higher. Israel launched the war after Hamas carried out its unprecedented terror attack, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The total number of dead in Gaza represents just over 2% of the tiny enclave's population, with an average of around 3,000 people killed every month or 100 killed every day since Hamas-led insurgents took over. attack on southern Israel 15 months ago.
Israel has rejected the figures provided by Palestinian officials and blames Hamas for all the deaths in Gaza, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields. But new research published in the medical journal The Lancet suggests that the figure given by the Gazan health ministry for the first nine months of the war could be as high as 40%.
Gaza death toll very low, Lancet study suggests
From the start of the war through June 30, 2024, Gaza's heath ministry said just under 38,000 people had been killed by traumatic injuries, but the Lancet's estimate – published in a peer review based on data from health authorities, social media obituaries and online research – that more than 64,000 people were killed during that period.
CBS News cannot independently verify the numbers, and Israeli authorities have barred Western journalists from entering Gaza to report independently since the war began.
EYAD BABA/AFP/Getty
The Lancet noted that its estimate does not include thousands more people who are still believed to be buried under rubble, or who died from lack of access to food, water or medical care. during the war.
“I'm broken inside after losing my family,” 21-year-old Mahmoud Sukkar told CBS News' local team in Gaza. All 17 members of his family were killed, including his -into his mother, father and twin brother, when an Israeli strike hit their home in Gaza City in the first month of the war.
Sukkar, the only survivor, now lives alone in a tent camp in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.
“I have no desire,” said Sukkar. “I want to visit my family's graves. My desire is to visit their graves.”
Israel continues to attack Houthis in Yemen
As Israel continues its strikes against the remnants of Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces said on Friday that its naval and air forces had struck several. Houthi targets rebels on the west coast and interior of Yemen, including ports and a power station.
The Houthis, like Hamas, are supported by Iran, and have launched numerous missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping, US and Israeli military vessels and Israeli territory in support of their allies. since the start of the war in Gaza. The US has also carried out many strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year.
“The Houthi terrorist regime is a key part of Iran's terrorist axis, and their attacks on ships and international shipping lanes continue to destabilize the region and the world at large,” said the IDF in a statement.
“As we promised – the Houthis are paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for their aggression against us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a separate statement.
Progress, but no progress in truce talks
Meanwhile, in Doha, Qatar, American and Arab negotiators have made “significant progress” this week toward an agreement between Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire and hostilities in the waning days of the Biden administration. , the US president said on Thursday, but it has not seemed enough to announce any major progress, or to warrant high-level officials flying back to the area.
“We're making some progress, I met with negotiators today,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “I'm still optimistic that we'll be able to have a prisoner exchange. It's Hamas is the one to block that exchange right now, but I think we can probably do that, we have to do it.”
US envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk had been working to hammer out the technical details of the proposal, but Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea did not fly to Doha this week because Israeli media had said he might , and there was no indication that CIA chief William. Burns was in Qatar, either. The two men have entered the talks several times when there was hope that an agreement could be reached.
One sticking point in the talks is the unconfirmed status of 34 Israeli hostages in Gaza who were listed on a document that Hamas surfaced this week after it first surfaced this summer. -last year Israel has demanded to know who on the list is still alive and who is dead. Hamas called for a four-day ceasefire to contact its terrorist network across Gaza to confirm the hostages' situation, saying continued Israeli operations made it impossible for the group to make another assessment. .
Family members and friends of the hostages have been protesting regularly in Israel asking the Netanyahu government to reach an agreement to bring them home at the same time. Israeli officials believe that around 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas or its allies in Gaza, although at least 30 are believed to be dead.
If a ceasefire is reached, the first phase would include an exchange of hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, along with an increase in humanitarian aid into Gaza.
But another major obstacle is Hamas' constant demand that Israeli forces pull out of the Gaza Strip completely – something Israel has so far refused to accept.
Some Israelis and Palestinians are hoping for “help from Donald Trump”
If an agreement is not reached with the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on January 20, some Israelis – and Palestinians – hope it will bring a needed change to the talks, perhaps for the better.
“He is unbelievable and he is brave,” Ilay David, the brother of 24-year-old hostage Eyvatar David, told CBS News at a rally in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon. “We need to think outside the box, and Trump can bring that change.”
“Donald Trump is known for being mostly a businessman,” said Ameen Abu Fkheida, a 19-year-old Palestinian cybersecurity student at Birzeit University in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I don't think he will be a friend (of the Palestinians), but I think there will be some kind of help from Donald Trump on the Gaza issue, which could be a truce.” or a prisoner exchange or something for him. eliminate the current situation in Gaza.”
