Gaza death toll rises to 2,450; over 1,400 killed in Hamas attacks on Israel

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 2,450 people since Hamas’s bloody attack on southern Israel last week, the Gaza health ministry said Sunday. The Hamas-controlled ministry also said that 9,200 people have also been injured as Israel continued its blistering air campaign on targets in the Palestinian coastal enclave, reported AFP. Meanwhile, the Israeli prime minister’s office on Sunday said that more than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since the attack unleashed last week by Hamas militants from the blockaded Gaza Strip. “Over 1,400 were killed (and) over 120 Israelis were abducted by Hamas terrorists” since the October 7 attack, Tal Heinrich, spokeswoman for the prime minister’s office, told journalists. Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to “demolish Hamas” as his military prepared ground operations in Gaza to root out the militant group, whose deadly rampage through Israeli border towns stunned the nation. Israel has urged Gazans to evacuate south, which hundreds of thousands have already done in their Hamas-controlled enclave that is home to 2.2 million people, about half in Gaza City. Inside besieged Gaza, where conditions are deteriorating and deaths from Israeli air strikes rising, civilians said they had nowhere to flee and were not safe anywhere, reported Reuters. Hamas has asked them to stay put. With fears of the conflict spilling over, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued his rapid tour of Middle East states, seeking to prevent escalation and secure the release of 126 hostages Israel says were taken by Hamas back into Gaza. With inputs from agencies