GAZA CITY, Tuesday, October 13, 2026 — The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has climbed past 74,300, health authorities said, as the enclave marked one year since a ceasefire agreement took effect — an anniversary undercut by continued Israeli strikes that aid agencies say have killed or wounded a Palestinian on average every 90 minutes since the truce began.
One Year of ‘Ceasefire,’ One Year of Killing
The Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday that the cumulative death toll since October 2023 had reached 74,382, with 1,493 people killed and 5,299 wounded since the October 10, 2025 ceasefire took effect. The toll stood at 1,460 killed a week earlier, a sign of the steady pace of fatalities despite the truce, reports said.
An Al Jazeera review found that Israel has attacked Gaza on 325 of the past 361 days, leaving only 36 days with no reported attacks, deaths or injuries. Islamic Relief calculated that Israeli forces have killed or wounded a Palestinian on average every 90 minutes since the ceasefire began. The United States continues to insist the ceasefire is holding, the reports noted.
Israel Pushes Beyond the ‘Yellow Line’
Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw to a boundary known as the “Yellow Line.” Instead, Israel has pushed beyond it and now controls roughly 70 percent of the territory, reports said, forcing about two million residents — nearly the entire population — into the remaining 30 percent, most of them in tents.
In recent days, Israeli forces carried out airstrikes, opened fire and demolished homes across the strip, reports said. On Monday, an Israeli strike hit a security post in the al-Mawasi area of Rafah, killing two people, while three Palestinians were killed and six wounded in an overnight airstrike on a mobile phone charging point in Khan Younis’s al-Buraq neighborhood. Local sources identified the dead as Abdel Hamid Jadallah, Mohammad Ramzi Hajjaj and Youssef Abu Rizq, reports said.
Seven-year-old Jihad al-Ghandour died in Jabalia of wounds from a shooting the previous day, while eight-year-old Shahd al-Najjar was killed by Israeli fire inside her tent in western Gaza City on Saturday, reports said. A woman was also shot in the back while inside her tent in al-Mawasi, and Israeli forces demolished residential buildings on Baghdad Street in Shujaiya overnight, according to the reports.
Israel’s Claims Met With Denials
The Israeli military claimed several of those killed this week were Palestinian fighters, describing two men killed near the Jordanian Field Hospital as Islamic Jihad operatives and a civil defence worker killed near Kamal Adwan Hospital as a Hamas sniper, reports said. Hamas rejected the claims, which have not been independently verified.
Gaza ‘Becoming an Increasingly Unlivable Place’
A senior UNRWA health official, Akihiro Seita, said Gaza is “becoming an increasingly unlivable place for humans” due to Israel’s large-scale military operations. In an interview ahead of the ceasefire anniversary, Seita said persistent shortages of medical supplies continue due to delivery restrictions, and that hygiene conditions remain dire amid outbreaks of skin and other infectious diseases.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 44 percent of essential medicines are completely out of stock, and a Physicians for Human Rights Israel report found that not one of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is operating at full capacity a year into the ceasefire, reports said. The Health Ministry counts only deaths recorded at hospitals or officially registered, and the true toll is likely much higher, excluding thousands still buried under rubble or missing.
Children remain the hardest hit. At least 21,000 of the dead are children — about one in every 30 people in Gaza — and more than 175,000 people have been wounded, roughly one in 13. A conservative WHO estimate suggests nearly a quarter of the wounded have life-changing injuries requiring long-term rehabilitation, a quarter of them children.
