The Gaza health ministry said eight of the bodies were recovered from beneath debris, while four others were killed in more recent incidents. Another seven Palestinians were treated for injuries during the same period.

The latest casualties bring the total Palestinian death toll in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza to 70,937, with 171,192 others wounded. Civil defence officials say the figures undercount the true scale of the genocide, estimating that about 10,000 people remain missing under roughly 60 million tonnes of debris that cannot be cleared because of a total lack of heavy machinery and fuel.

In Khan Younis, Mayor Alaa al-Din al-Batta said municipal recovery efforts had reached a “total standstill”. He said Israel was deliberately strangling fuel supplies to paralyse the city’s ability to clear debris and open roads for emergency services, adding that fuel currently allowed into the enclave through the United Nations covers less than 10 percent of operational needs.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned that 1.6 million Palestinians in Gaza continue to face acute food insecurity, with the ongoing blockade exacerbating famine in parts of the enclave. Despite a fragile truce in place since 10 October, Israeli forces have continued attacks across Gaza, including a recent strike on a Ministry of Education training centre sheltering displaced families, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Those violations have killed at least 405 Palestinians and, alongside the danger of unexploded ordnance, continue to place thousands more at grave risk, officials said.

International aid agencies warned that the “stranglehold” on construction materials and fuel amounts to a policy of collective punishment that has left 90% of Gaza’s infrastructure in ruins, with total reconstruction costs now estimated by the United Nations at $70 billion.

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