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Palestinian Death Toll Passes 64,000, Health Officials Say, as Israel and Hamas Dig in on Demands

Palestinians shove to receive a hot meal from a charity kitchen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Israel-besieged Gaza Strip on September 4, 2025, where the UN has declared famine after nearly two years of war. (AFP)
Palestinians shove to receive a hot meal from a charity kitchen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Israel-besieged Gaza Strip on September 4, 2025, where the UN has declared famine after nearly two years of war. (AFP)
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Palestinian Death Toll Passes 64,000, Health Officials Say, as Israel and Hamas Dig in on Demands

Palestinians shove to receive a hot meal from a charity kitchen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Israel-besieged Gaza Strip on September 4, 2025, where the UN has declared famine after nearly two years of war. (AFP)
Palestinians shove to receive a hot meal from a charity kitchen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Israel-besieged Gaza Strip on September 4, 2025, where the UN has declared famine after nearly two years of war. (AFP)

More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed in the nearly two-year war in the Gaza Strip, local health officials said Thursday, as Hamas and Israel reiterated their incompatible demands for ending the fighting sparked by the militant group’s 2023 attack.

Local hospitals said that Israeli strikes killed 28 people, mostly women and children, overnight and into Thursday, as Israel pressed ahead with the initial stages of its offensive in famine-stricken Gaza City. In the occupied West Bank, Israelis established a new settlement in a Palestinian city, according to an anti-settlement monitoring group.

Hamas released a statement late Wednesday saying that it was open to returning all 48 hostages it still holds — around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive — in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from all of Gaza, the opening of border crossings and a start to the daunting challenge of rebuilding Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office dismissed the offer as “spin” and said that the war would continue until all the hostages are returned, Hamas is disarmed and Israel has full security control of the territory, with civilian administration delegated to others.

Talks on a temporary ceasefire that would have seen some of the hostages returned broke down last month when US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff walked away, blaming Hamas. The group later accepted a proposal that Hamas and Arab mediators said was almost identical to an earlier one accepted by Israel, but there’s been no public indication that talks have resumed.

The latest strikes came as Israeli troops were operating on the outskirts of Gaza City, in the initial stages of a planned offensive to take over the most populous Palestinian city, home to around a million people, many of whom have already been displaced multiple times.

Shifa Hospital in Gaza City received 25 bodies, including nine children and six women, after Israeli strikes hit tents housing displaced people, according to hospital records. Among those killed was a 10-day-old baby. Another three people were killed in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it only targets fighters and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying militants are entrenched in densely-populated areas.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 64,231 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. The latest update includes around 400 who were presumed missing but whose deaths it says have been confirmed. It doesn't say how many of those killed in the war were militants or civilians. It says women and children make up around half the dead.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. Its figures are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by UN agencies and many independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in their attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Most have since been released in ceasefires or other agreements.

Israelis establish new settlement in West Bank city

An anti-settlement watchdog group said Israelis have established a new settlement in the heart of the Palestinian city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.

Peace Now says the government-backed settlers took over a building on a main thoroughfare used by Palestinians to access the Old City, where hundreds of hardline settlers already live in a decades-old settlement guarded by Israeli troops adjacent to Palestinian homes.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government.

Hebron’s Old City is home to a major holy site revered by Jews and Muslims, where the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their wives, are believed to be buried. It has often been the scene of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state and along with most of the international community view settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

“The goal of establishing a settlement in the heart of Hebron’s casbah is to seize new areas of the city and displace Palestinians from them, similar to what was done in the city center around the existing settlements,” Peace Now said.

“The settlement in Hebron is the ugliest face of Israeli control in the territories. Nowhere else in the West Bank is apartheid so blatant,” it said.

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Arab World

Lebanon: Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session over Iran Ambassador Expulsion

A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
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Lebanon: Hezbollah Boycotts Cabinet Session over Iran Ambassador Expulsion

A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)
A previous session of the Lebanese Parliament (National News Agency)

Ministers from Hezbollah and its ally Amal boycotted Lebanon's cabinet session on Thursday in protest over the government declaring the Iranian ambassador persona non grata, a Lebanese official told AFP.

The two Shiite parties have a combined four ministers, with one independent Shiite also represented in the cabinet present at the meeting, the official said, as the spat over the Iranian diplomat's expulsion escalated.

Hezbollah is an armed movement backed by Iran, which also has political representation in both government and parliament.

Arab World

Lebanese Fear Another Occupation as Israel Threatens to Use Gaza Tactics in the South

Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
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Lebanese Fear Another Occupation as Israel Threatens to Use Gaza Tactics in the South

Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli military vehicles maneuver on the Lebanese side of the border, as seen from the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, 25 March 2026. EPA/ATEF SAFADI

As Israel trades fire with Hezbollah, calls for mass evacuations and sends ground troops deeper into Lebanon, its leaders have hinted at a long-term occupation modeled on the devastating conquest of much of Gaza after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Israel says it needs to establish a zone of control in the depopulated south to shield its own northern communities, which have faced daily rocket attacks since the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group joined the wider war. Many in Lebanon fear that could mean the open-ended displacement of over a million people, the flattening of their homes and a loss of territory.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week that it would create a “security zone” up to the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border in some places. He said troops would destroy homes, which he claimed were being used by militants, and that residents would not return until northern Israel is safe.

The campaign would mirror the one in Gaza, in which Israeli forces flattened and largely depopulated the eastern half of the Palestinian territory, Katz said on Tuesday. Israel has said it won't withdraw from the enclave until Hamas disarms as part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal.

“We have ordered an acceleration in the destruction of Lebanese homes in contact-line villages to neutralize threats to Israeli communities, in accordance with the model of Beit Hanoun and Rafah in Gaza,” Katz said, referring to border towns that were largely obliterated.

From one war to the next

After a 2024 ceasefire halted Israel's last war with Hezbollah, Israeli forces gradually withdrew from southern Lebanon except for five strategic hilltops along the border.

Lebanese returned to find that homes, infrastructure, and some entire villages destroyed. Israel said it had dismantled Hezbollah infrastructure that could have been used to launch an Oct. 7-style attack, and it continued to strike what it said were militant targets on a near-daily basis after the truce.

Hezbollah resumed it attacks after Israel and the United States launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28, accusing Israel of having repeatedly violated the ceasefire. Israel accused Lebanon's government of failing to carry out its pledge to disarm Hezbollah, despite its unprecedented steps toward criminalizing the group.

In the latest fighting, Israel has launched blistering air raids across Lebanon, killing more than 1,000 people — mostly outside of the border area — and displacing over a million. It has warned residents to evacuate a wide swath of the south, extending from the border to the Zahrani River, some 55 kilometers (34 miles) away.

The Israeli military says it has launched a limited ground operation. Political leaders speak of more ambitious plans.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's far-right finance minister and a member of its Security Cabinet, said this week that the current war must end with “fundamental change.”

“The Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon,” he said.

Echoes of an earlier occupation Israel invaded southern Lebanon in 1982 during the country's civil war. Hezbollah, established that year, waged a guerrilla campaign that eventually ended the Israeli occupation in 2000.

This time around, Israel has bombed seven bridges over the Litani, the northern edge of a UN-patrolled buffer zone established after previous conflicts. Israel says Hezbollah was using the bridges to move fighters and weapons, and that its military will control the remaining crossings.

Heavy fighting has meanwhile erupted in the town of Khiam, the fall of which would cut off the south from Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, another area with a large Hezbollah presence.

After the bridges were bombed, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of seeking to sever the south from the rest of the country “to establish a buffer zone, entrench the reality of occupation, and pursue Israeli expansion within Lebanese territories.”

UN peacekeepers say the bombing of the bridges and ongoing clashes have hindered their operations and put personnel at risk.

“This is the closest fighting activity we have seen to our positions,” said Kandice Ardel, spokesperson for the UN mission known as UNIFIL. “Bullets, fragments, and shrapnel have hit buildings and open areas inside our headquarters.”

Ardel said peacekeepers at observation points have seen a growing presence of Israeli troops and “engineering assets,” though they have not seen any new military positions built yet.

‘Different shades’ of control

Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East think tank in Beirut, said Israel has already established “different shades” of control.

“The first line of borders is a no-man zone. This is basically a large parking lot that is facing Israel,” he said. “There is nothing there, no movement, nothing at all.”

Lebanese movement is restricted farther north. During last year's olive harvest, farmers struggled to reach their groves because of regular Israeli strikes and had to be accompanied by Lebanese troops and UNIFIL peacekeepers, who coordinated with Israel.

Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Alma Institute and a retired Israeli military officer, said Israel will likely establish a more extensive area of control stretching farther north.

She acknowledged that Israel was unlikely to defeat Hezbollah and was at risk of having to maintain a long-term presence in southern Lebanon.

“But the other alternative is to take the risk that we will be slaughtered. It’s as simple as that,” she said.

No diplomatic offramp in sight

Lebanon's government has broken a longstanding taboo by proposing direct talks with Israel. It has also taken action against Hezbollah since the last war, criminalizing its activities and claiming to have dismantled hundreds of military positions.

But neither the US nor Israel has shown any interest in such talks as they focus on the wider war with Iran.

If negotiations occur, Israel could demand major concessions in exchange for relinquishing territory taken by force — an updated version of the decades-old “land for peace” formula.

Israel seized parts of Syria after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad and is in talks with the new government in Damascus about an updated security arrangement. In Gaza, it has vowed to keep half the territory until the militant Palestinian Hamas group lays down its arms, as each side has accused the other of violating the truce reached in October.

Lebanese who fled their homes are meanwhile in limbo — and some fear they may never return.

Elias Konsol and his neighbors fled the Christian border village of Alma al-Shaab with UNIFIL's help. He was reunited with his mother, who cried in his arms, at a church near Beirut where funeral services were being held for a resident killed in an Israeli strike.

Konsol said there were no weapons or Hezbollah fighters in his village, but it was forced to evacuate anyway.

“We no longer know our fate,” he said. “We don’t know if we will see our homes and village again.”

Arab World

Lebanon: Hezbollah Claims Targeting 10 Israeli Merkava Tanks

Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
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Lebanon: Hezbollah Claims Targeting 10 Israeli Merkava Tanks

Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu
Israeli tanks near the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in northern Israel, March 25, 2026. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

Lebanon's Iran-aligned Hezbollah group said Thursday that it struck10 Israeli Merkava tanks in three southern towns along the border.

In a series of separate statements, Hezbollah said that its members targeted the advanced Israeli tanks with guided missiles in the towns of Deir Siryan, Debel, and Al-Qantara, and achieved confirmed hits.

Earlier, Hezbollah said it targeted the headquarters of the Israeli Ministry of War in the center of Tel Aviv, and the Dolphin barracks of the Military Intelligence Division north of Tel Aviv with a number of missiles.

The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was killed in fighting in south Lebanon after the army announced it was conducting ground operations against Hezbollah.

"Staff sergeant Ori Greenberg, aged 21, from Petah Tikva, a soldier of the Reconnaissance unit, Golani Brigade, fell during combat in southern Lebanon," the military said.

In total, three Israeli soldiers have been killed in fighting in south Lebanon since Hezbollah drew the country into the Israel and US war on Iran by launching rocket attacks against Israel on March 2 to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel is responding by launching large-scale raids on Lebanon, while its forces have advanced into southern Lebanon.

After the Lebanese Presidency repeatedly announced its readiness to open direct negotiations with Israel in order to end the war, Hezbollah announced its refusal to negotiate "under fire."

Its Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, said Wednesday in a statement: "When negotiating with the Israeli enemy under fire is proposed, it is an imposition of surrender and a deprivation of all of Lebanon's capabilities."

He called on the government to "reverse its decision to criminalize resistance and the resistance fighters," after announcing a ban on the party's security and military activities, as part of a series of unprecedented measures it has taken since the outbreak of the war.