Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war toll at 47,306

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Sunday the death toll from the war with Israel had reached 47,306, with numbers rising in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies are found under the rubble.

The ministry said hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 23 bodies in the past 72 hours -- 14 "recovered from under the rubble", five who "succumbed to their injuries" from earlier in the war, and four new fatalities.

It did not specify how the new fatalities occurred.

The ministry said the war had also left 111,483 people wounded.

Some Gazans have died from wounds inflicted before the ceasefire, with the health system in the Palestinian territory largely destroyed by more than 15 months of fighting and bombardment.

The ministry again reiterated its appeal for Gazans to submit information about dead or missing people to help update its records.

A vast crowd of Gazans massed near an Israeli military barrier preventing them from heading to their homes in the north on Sunday amid a row between Hamas and Israel over the terms of their ceasefire deal.

Aerial footage from AFPTV showed the crowd fanning out for hundreds of metres from a junction on a coastal road in the Nuseirat area and spilling onto a nearby beach.

Dotted among the crowd were water tankers, ambulances, donkey carts, TV crews and their vehicles, and dozens of tents in which displaced Gazans sat and waited for permission to continue their journey.

AFP journalists at the scene said the mass of people stretched for three kilometres along Al Rashid Road, with Gaza police preventing civilians from getting close to the Israelis, whose jets and drones flew overhead.

Dozens of displaced people camped in the garden of a bombed-out villa, some of them milling around in its empty swimming pool.

Whole families sat on the side of the road waiting for news, their belongings bundled up in blankets or crammed into overstuffed backpacks.

Saeed Abu Sharia, 49, said he arrived on Saturday night and slept outside while his wife, mother and children stayed in his car for warmth.

"I burned the tent last night because it was a symbol of misery and humiliation," he said. 

Fifty of his relatives were killed in the 15-month war, said Abu Sharia, whose home was also destroyed. 

Belongings piled high 

A few kilometres inland, hundreds of Palestinian families were waiting next to their cars in a long traffic jam on Salah Al Din Street, with everything they owned piled in great mounds atop their vehicles and strapped down tight.

"Tens of thousands of displaced people are waiting near the Netzarim Corridor to return to the northern Gaza Strip," Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, with Israel refusing to allow them through in a dispute over a hostage release. 

Ismail Al Thawabtah, director general of the government media office in Hamas-run Gaza, also said there were tens of thousands waiting at the junction.

He put the total number of Gazans wanting to return to the north at "between 615,000 and 650,000", with two-thirds of them likely to use the coastal road.

The Netzarim Corridor is a seven-kilometre strip of land militarised by Israel that bisects the Gaza Strip from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea. The corridor cuts off the north from the rest of the territory.

Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the terms of the ceasefire, which began a week ago.

As part of the deal, Israel was due to let displaced Gazans cross the corridor and return to their homes, with Hamas officials saying this would happen on Saturday.

Israel, however, accused Hamas of reneging on the deal by not releasing hostage Arbel Yehud on Saturday. Yehud was one the 251 hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

As a civilian woman, Yehud "was supposed to be released" as part of the second hostage-prisoner swap under the truce deal, a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"Israel will not allow the passage of Gazans to the northern part of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud... is arranged," it added.

Two Hamas sources told AFP on Saturday that Yehud was "alive and in good health", with one source saying she would be "released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday", on February 1.

Hamas on Sunday said Israel blocking returns to the north amounted to a truce violation, adding it has provided "all the necessary guarantees" for Yehud's release.

On the other side of the corridor in north Gaza was Bashar Naser, a 28-year-old from Jabalia, who had been waiting for his relatives since early morning.

"We want to welcome them and celebrate... this is a great joy."