Israel-Gaza updates: Gaza sees deadliest day since conflict began

At least 700 people died in Gaza on Tuesday, OCHA said.

Last Updated: October 25, 2023, 12:41 PM EDT

Thousands of people have died and thousands more have been injured since the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel retaliated with a bombing campaign and total siege of the neighboring Gaza Strip, leaving the region on the verge of all-out war.

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Latest headlines:

Here's how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Mar 01, 2024, 6:03 AM EST

What we know about the conflict

The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.

In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.

Oct 25, 2023, 12:41 PM EDT

Tuesday marks deadliest day in Gaza since conflict began

Tuesday marked the deadliest day in Gaza since the Hamas-Israel conflict began on Oct. 7, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

At least 700 people died on Tuesday, OCHA said.

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 24, 2023 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.
Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

Trucks loaded with aid reaches a hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, Oct. 25, 2023.
AP Photo

Over 6,500 people have died in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.

Oct 25, 2023, 11:40 AM EDT

Gaza to run out of fuel Wednesday night: UNRWA

Gaza is set to run out of fuel Wednesday night, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

"If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the Gaza Strip" Wednesday night, UNRWA said.

Palestinian children receive food at a UN-run school in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on Oct. 23, 2023 amid ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas militants.
Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

Oct 25, 2023, 11:29 AM EDT

UN secretary-general responds to Israeli ambassador's criticism

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is responding to the Israeli ambassador's call for him to resign, saying it's false to accuse him of "justifying" Hamas' attacks.

Avida Bachar, who was injured following a deadly attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza in Kibbutz Beeri, mourns during the funeral of his wife Dana and his son Karmel at Kvutzat Shiller, Israel Oct. 24, 2023.
Shir Torem/Reuters

At the U.N. Security Council meeting on Tuesday, Guterres asserted that "the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum," sparking immediate backlash from Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan.

"The Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner," Erdan said. "His statement that, 'The attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,' expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder."

Susannah Heschel, Chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth University, and Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, explain the conflict.
Susannah Heschel, Chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth University, and Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, explain the conflict.

"It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views," Erdan said.

Guterres said at the U.N. Wednesday, "I am shocked by the misinterpretations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council, as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas. This is false. It was the opposite. In the beginning of my intervention yesterday, I clearly stated -- and I quote: 'I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror by Hamas in Israel. Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians, or the launching of rockets against civilian targets.'"

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes on houses, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Oct 25, 2023.
Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

"Indeed, I spoke of the grievances of the Palestinian people," Guterres continued. "And in doing so, I also clearly stated, and I quote: 'But the grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas.'"

Oct 25, 2023, 11:10 AM EDT

Gaza hospital 'will turn into a big morgue,' doctor warns

In Gaza, where the "health system is collapsing," doctors "cannot offer much" to their hundreds of severely wounded patients, Dr. Mohammed Ghandil from Gaza's Nasser Hospital told ABC News.

Palestinian medic takes a baby pulled out of buildings destroyed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Oct. 22, 2023.
Hatem Ali/AP

The father of Alma Al Majayda, 3, killed in Israeli strikes, reacts while carrying her body during her funeral, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Oct. 19, 2023.
Mohammed Salem/Reuters

"The hospital door is open, but the health care is not provided," Ghandil said.

"We are just giving some peaceful words for them to die," he said.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that one-third of hospitals in Gaza and two-thirds of clinics were not functioning.

More than 17,000 people in Gaza have been wounded since Oct. 7.

Palestinians flee following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, October, 23, 2023.
MOHAMMED SABER/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

"Even the medical patient [who] was not wounded, who came with heart attack, with stroke, with sepsis, we're just sending them home because there is no bed in the hospital," he said. "The hospital corridors, the hospital backyards, the hospital balcony are fully, fully packed with the severely wounded."

Gaza is set to run out of fuel Wednesday night, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

"If the fuel is zero," Ghandil said, "the doctors and the nurses will go home and the hospital will turn to a big morgue."

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency says Gaza will run out of fuel as soon as Wednesday, forcing hospitals to stop operations.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency says Gaza will run out of fuel as soon as Wednesday, forcing hospitals to stop operations.

-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian

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