The death toll in Gaza during the 11-week assault stands at 20,258 while another 53,688 were injured.
At least 201 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 370 injured by Israeli forces in the past 24 hours in Gaza as the assault on the besieged enclave approaches its 12th week.
A bombing in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday killed at least eight Palestinians, including children, while another attack on the Jabalia camp is believed to have killed dozens more.
The death toll in Gaza during the 11-week assault stands at 20,258 while another 53,688 were injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry announced on Saturday.
Thousands more bodies are believed to be trapped under rubble across the strip.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Rafah, said Israeli attacks across Gaza “have become much more intense.”
“The shelling and shelling of the northern parts of the territory continues as corpses have been found decomposed after days of fighting on the ground in these areas,” he said.
Tel Aviv Tribune television said the decomposing bodies, some of which were left unattended for 20 days in the rubble and streets, were finally buried by the Gaza Civil Defense team on Saturday.
“No safe place”
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced and forced to live in flimsy tents or on the streets of the southern Strip, where famine is widespread.
Israel has long urged Palestinians to leave northern areas of Gaza, but its forces also bombard central and southern neighborhoods of the small coastal enclave.
“Where should we go?” There is no safe place,” Ziad, a doctor and father of six, told Reuters news agency by telephone.
“They are asking people to head towards (the central Gaza city) Deir el-Balah, where they are bombing day and night. »
Israel said 144 of its soldiers had been killed since launching its ground incursion on October 20, two weeks after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on its soil, killing 1,147 people and taking 240 prisoners into the enclave. .
More than 100 captives are believed to remain in Gaza after a number were exchanged during a week-long truce last month. The Israeli government says that of those still in Gaza, 22 are dead.
Hamas said Saturday it had lost contact with a group it said was responsible for five of the Israeli prisoners due to Israeli bombing.
It is possible that the captives were killed in an Israeli raid, said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
There was no immediate response from Israeli authorities to Hamas’ statement.
Based on various sources of information, a committee appointed by the Israeli government declared some hostages dead in absentia.
Hamas has not confirmed the accounts but warned Israel that “time is running out” for the captives.
Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ representative in Beirut, said Saturday that there would be no negotiations with Israel over prisoner exchanges until the attack on Gaza ceases.
“If Israel wants its prisoners back alive, it must stop the war,” he said.
