Gaza death toll surpasses 69,000 as thousands await medical evacuation

The Palestinian Ministry of Health has updated its death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza, saying that 69,179 Palestinians were killed while the World Health Organisation urged more countries to accept patients from the enclave.

News of the new death toll came as the bodies of two Palestinians killed in an Israeli raid were recovered in Khan Younis on Tuesday.

According to The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Israeli forces opened fire on areas near the al-Bureij camp, while helicopters circled above Khan Younis on Tuesday.

Since the ceasefire came into effect, at least 242 Palestinians have been killed and 622 others wounded in Israeli attacks, the ministry of health added.

At least two people, one of them a child, were killed in an Israeli drone strike on Monday, east of Khan Younis, prompting the Palestinian group Hamas to condemn the "daily and continuous violations".

The Israeli army claimed that those killed on Monday posed an "immediate threat" to their forces, without further elaboration. The Israeli military has also been systematically targeting and destroying homes inside the so-called "yellow line" boundary which was marked during the truce agreement.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that over 16,000 patients in Gaza are waiting to be evacuated for urgent medical treatment abroad.

The organisation called for a surge of aid to be allowed in through all land crossings, noting that the health infrastructure in the Strip is collapsing rapidly.

In a statement on Monday, the WHO called on more countries to accept wounded patients from Gaza, adding that they require surgeries that cannot be performed in the enclave due to lack of equipment.

They also said that many of their medical supplies are waiting at the Gaza border but have not been allowed into the enclave by Israel.

Aid groups have in recent weeks demanded that Israel comply with the terms of the ceasefire agreement regarding aid deliveries, which specify that 600 trucks of supplies should be allowed into the Strip daily, including 50 carrying fuel.

This is the bare minimum required to keep the people of the devastated territory alive.

Palestinians in the enclave are still suffering from extreme shortage of food, medicine, clean water and equipment to make temporary shelters.

Knesset approves bill to ban foreign media

The latest developments in Gaza come as the Israeli Knesset on Tuesday passed the first of three votes for a bill that would allow Tel Aviv to close any foreign media outlet without court approval.

The bill aims to turn a current order that allows a foreign media outlet to be banned temporarily, into permanent law.

It was previously used to ban Al-Jazeera operating in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli Knesset also passed the first reading of a bill allowing the execution of Palestinian prisoners on Tuesday.

Hamas strongly condemned this, calling it an "attempt to legitimise mass murder against our people" and saying it was a "dangerous escalation" and part of the "systematic extermination and ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians.

The bill imposes the death penalty on prisoners convicted of killing Israelis on "nationalistic grounds" and needs now to pass two more rounds of voting in order to become law.

The advancement of the bills coincides with increasing Israeli raids on the occupied West Bank, with Israeli forces setting fire to Palestinian lands east of Jenin on Tuesday.

The town of Huwara, the Balata refugee camp and the new Askar camp were also the scene of violent raids.