
The body of a dead person is transported on a donkey-drawn cart near the rubble of collapsed buildings in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip a day after a ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas went into effect. AFP
The ceasefire has held since going into effect on Sunday, bringing a halt to more than 15 months of war in the Palestinian territory.
But the health ministry is finding more dead, as the truce has allowed people to comb the ruins. Other people have died from wounds received before the fighting stopped, with the territory's health system devastated by the war.
The bodies of 72 people "arrived at hospitals... over the past 24 hours", the ministry said in a statement.
"A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulances and civil protection teams are unable to reach them," it added.
The ministry said the number of wounded had reached 111,147 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
The ministry called on the families of people killed or missing in the war to register online to aid in the identification of bodies and to compile a more accurate death toll.
A study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published in early January estimated that the number of deaths during the first month of the war was around 40 percent higher than the official ministry figure.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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