GAZA CITY — The death toll in Gaza surged past 72,500 on Monday as Israeli forces killed two more Palestinians, pushing the total number of people killed since October 7, 2023, more than 72,553, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The dead include at least 38,000 women and girls, an average of 47 killed every day over 27 months, the United Nations Women’s Agency (UN Women) reported.
The true toll is almost certainly higher. UN Women said many bodies are still trapped under rubble, and the Gazan health authorities estimate more than 172,000 Palestinians have been wounded.
‘A complete lack of most services’
The war has reshaped Palestinian society in ways that will take generations to heal. Tens of thousands of households are now headed by women, said Sofia Calltorp, UN Women’s Chief of Humanitarian Action. “Having lost their husbands, they are sustaining their families without income, without support or access to essential services.”
Calltorp described women giving birth in the streets “because there were no transportations to bring them to any functional hospitals.”
Nearly a million women and girls have been repeatedly displaced during the war, while around 790,000 face crisis-level or catastrophic food insecurity. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said at least 214 children have been killed in the past six months alone.
Killing the lifelines
Israel’s systematic targeting of humanitarian workers has crippled aid operations across the enclave. According to UNOPS, at least 588 aid workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began. The killings have accelerated in recent weeks, even under the ceasefire, with aid workers have been killed in growing numbers.
April 6: Majdi Aslan, 54, a contractor for the World Health Organization (WHO), was killed by Israeli fire while driving a clearly marked WHO vehicle at the front of a coordinated medical evacuation convoy to the Rafah crossing. A colleague told reporters: “What ceasefire is this? Every day we have someone killed.” The WHO suspended all medical evacuations from Gaza following the attack.
April 17: Two brothers, Eid and Mahmoud Abu Warda, contracted by UNICEF to deliver clean water to families, were killed by Israeli fire at the Mansoura water filling point in northern Gaza, where two truck drivers delivering clean water were confirmed killed by UNICEF. UNICEF suspended onsite activities at the facility, which was the only operational truck filling point for Gaza City’s water supply line.
UN experts reported that Israeli forces have killed over 500 humanitarian workers and at least 1,500 health workers since October 2023. Related coverage of the Gaza Genocide highlights similar humanitarian collapse trends.
A suffocating blockade
On Monday, Israel announced it would close Gaza’s humanitarian aid crossings for two days due to national holidays, the latest in a series of restrictions that have crippled relief efforts. Similar developments have been documented in humanitarian crisis in Gaza reports.
Aid deliveries have fallen far below agreed levels. During the first six months of the ceasefire, only 41,714 aid trucks entered Gaza out of a total of 110,400 that were expected, less than 38 percent of the agreed quota.
The Israeli ban on “dual-use” items remains the biggest obstacle, Nickolay Mladenov, high representative of the Board of Peace, said on Friday. Plaster of Paris, essential for making prosthetics, has been almost entirely restricted for more than four months. More than 5,000 Palestinians, a quarter of them children, are in need of prosthetic limbs.
Medical evacuations have collapsed. More than 18,000 patients are waiting to leave Gaza for treatment, while only around 700 have been able to exit since the ceasefire began.
In January, Israel banned 37 international NGOs from operating in Gaza and the West Bank, a move UN experts called a “flagrant violation of the law” that “renders life unbearable for a population already devastated by genocide.” UN experts warned that “by blocking aid, Israel is worsening life-threatening conditions, and heightens potential criminal responsibility for its leaders.”
‘2,400 violations’, The ceasefire that isn’t
The US-brokered ceasefire that took effect on October 10, 2025, was never honored by Washington or Tel Aviv. Within six months, both nations had launched dozens of new airstrikes and military campaigns, reducing the truce to a cynical cover for continued aggression, a ceasefire in name only, as bombs and ground assaults resumed across the region.
The Hamas-run media office said on Tuesday that the Israeli army has committed 2,400 violations of the ceasefire agreement, including 921 shooting incidents, 1,109 bombardments, 97 incursions into residential areas, and 273 demolitions of homes and buildings. The ongoing violations have killed 773 Palestinians and injured 2,171 others, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
On Monday alone, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including a young man fatally shot in Jabalia.
Talks between Hamas and the US-backed “Board of Peace” in Cairo ended last week “without tangible progress” on advancing the second phase of the ceasefire.
Hamas clashes with Israeli-backed militia
Compounding the chaos, fighters from a small Israeli-backed militia crossed from the occupied eastern part of Gaza into the Maghazi camp on April 6, clashing with Hamas forces. Israel launched airstrikes on east Maghazi during the clashes, killing 10 people in total, including a Hamas unit leader, according to eyewitnesses.
The militia is led by Shawky Abu Nasira, a former Palestinian Authority officer who spent 16 years in Israeli prisons and announced in November 2025 the formation of an Israeli-backed armed faction in eastern Khan Younis with the stated aim of fighting Hamas.
The incident illustrates the deepening fragmentation of Gaza, where more than half of the territory remains under Israeli military control.
Arrest warrants and sanctions
The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, has applied for arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
At least 75 British MPs have signed a parliamentary motion urging sanctions on Israel, citing alleged genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Arab League on Monday renewed its call for increased pressure on Israeli occupation forces to halt violations in Gaza and the West Bank.
‘No words left’
A new UN damage assessment report released Monday estimates that Gaza’s human development has been set back by 77 years. Around 1.9 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, and more than 60% of the population has lost their homes.
UN experts said in January: “There are no words left to describe what Gaza has become.”
UN Women is calling for full respect of the ceasefire, adherence to international law, and scaled-up humanitarian assistance, stressing that women and girls must be at the centre of recovery and peacebuilding efforts.
But with Israeli troops controlling more than half of Gaza, aid blockades tightening, and ceasefire talks stalled, there is little sign of relief for the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in what UN experts have repeatedly described as a genocide.
