Tel Aviv — As a result of Israeli military strikes, more than 600 people were killed Gaza Strip for the first 10 days of 2025. the number of dead since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023. has topped 46,000, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian Territory, and one new estimate suggests it could be much higher. Israel launched the war after Hamas carried out an unprecedented terrorist attack, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The total death toll in Gaza is just over 2% of the tiny enclave's population, with an average of about 3,000 killed every month or 100 killed every day since Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel 15 months ago.
Israel rejected the figures provided by Palestinian officials and blamed Hamas for all the deaths in Gaza, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields. But a new study published in the medical journal The Lancet suggests that the figure provided by Gaza's health ministry for the first nine months of the war may have been an underestimate by as much as 40%.
Lancet study shows Gaza death toll underestimated
Between the start of the war and June 30, 2024, Gaza's health ministry said just under 38,000 people had died from traumatic injuries, but the Lancet estimate published in peer-reviewed research based on data from health authorities, obituaries on social media and an online survey, more than 64,000 people were killed during that time.
CBS News is unable to independently verify these figures, and Israeli authorities have not allowed Western journalists into Gaza for independent reporting since the war began.
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The Lancet noted that its estimate does not include the thousands more people who are still buried under the rubble, or who died due to lack of access to food, water or medical care during the war.
“I'm broken inside after losing my family,” Mahmoud Sukar, 21, told CBS News' local team in Gaza. All 17 members of his family were killed, including his mother, father and twin brother, when Israel struck their home in Gaza City in the first month of the war.
Sukar, the sole survivor, now lives alone in a tent camp in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza.
“I don't have any wishes,” Sukar said. “I want to visit my family's graves. My only desire is to visit their graves.”
Israel continues to attack the Houthis in Yemen
As Israel continues to strike Hamas remnants, the Israel Defense Forces said on Friday that its navy and air force carried out several strikes The goal of the Houthi rebels on Yemen's west coast and inland, including ports and a power plant.
The Houthis, like Hamas, are backed by Iran and have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping, US and Israeli warships and Israeli territory in support of their allies since the start of the Gaza war. The US has also carried out many strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year.
“The Houthi terrorist regime is a central part of the Iranian axis of terror, and their attacks on international shipping and routes continue to destabilize the region and the world at large,” the IDF said in a statement.
“As we promised, the Houthis are paying and will pay a heavy price for their aggression against us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a separate statement.
Progress, but no breakthroughs in the ceasefire negotiations
Meanwhile, in Doha, Qatar this week, US and Arab negotiators made “real progress” in reaching a deal between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire and hostage release in the final days of the Biden administration, the US president said on Thursday, but it did not appear to be enough. for any major breakthrough to be announced or for higher-level officials to return to the region.
“We're making real progress, I met with negotiators today,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “I still hope we can do a prisoner exchange. Hamas is now preventing this exchange, but I think we can do it, we need to do it. “
US envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk worked on the technical details of the proposal, but Israeli intelligence chief David Borneo did not fly to Doha this week, Israeli media reported, and there was no indication that CIA chief William Burns was in Qatar either. The two have repeatedly joined the talks when there was hope for a potential agreement.
One apparent stumbling block in the talks was the unconfirmed status of 34 Israeli hostages in Gaza, who were listed in the document, which Hamas revived this week after it first surfaced last summer. Israel demanded to know who from the list is still alive and who is dead. Hamas demanded a four-day ceasefire to contact its militant network across Gaza to confirm the condition of the hostages, saying ongoing Israeli operations prevented the group from assessing otherwise.
Family members and friends of the hostages have regularly protested in Israel to demand that Netanyahu's government strike a deal to bring them all home at once. Israeli officials believe about 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas or its allies in Gaza, although at least 30 have died.
If the cease-fire does take shape, the first phase would include an exchange of hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza.
But another major obstacle is Hamas's consistent demand that Israeli troops withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip – something Israel has so far refused to accept.
Some Israelis, Palestinians hope for 'Donald Trump's help'
If a deal is not reached before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, some Israelis — and Palestinians — hope he will make the necessary changes to the talks, perhaps for the better.
“He is unpredictable and bold,” Eli David, the brother of 24-year-old hostage Eivatar David, told CBS News at a rally in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon. “We have to think outside the box, and Trump can make that change.”
“Donald Trump is known for being primarily a businessman,” said Amin Abu Fheida, a 19-year-old Palestinian cybersecurity student at Birzeit University in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I don't think he's going to be a friend (of the Palestinians), but I do think there will be some help from Donald Trump on the Gaza thing, which could probably be a ceasefire or a prisoner exchange or something. de-escalation of the current situation in Gaza”.
