Bodies of unidentified Palestinians returned from Israel as part of the ceasefire deal are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. AP
In a statement, the health ministry said the death toll from the war had risen to 70,100.
The ministry said that since the ceasefire came into effect on 10 Octobe, 354 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire.
Two bodies arrived at hospitals in the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours, the ministry said, one of which had been recovered from beneath the rubble.
Despite the ceasefire agreement, the Palestinian territory remains trapped in a deep humanitarian crisis as Israel continues to choke off aid delivery, flagrantly violating the terms of the truce.
On Thursday, Amnesty International issued a damning, extensive report saying Israel is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip more than a month after a ceasefire came into effect and warning that the truce has created a “dangerous illusion” of improvement while conditions on the ground remain catastrophic.
In tandem, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Saturday that approximately 9,300 cases of acute malnutrition among children under the age of five in Gaza during the past October.
In a statement, the organization warned that "alarmingly high levels of malnutrition continue to jeopardize the lives of children in the Gaza Strip." This threat is severely compounded by the arrival of the winter season, which "accelerates the spread of disease and drastically increases the risk of death among the most vulnerable children."
It added that "far too many children in Gaza continue to face hunger, disease, and exposure to dangerously low temperatures in conditions that critically endanger their lives."
The statement further explained that many essential goods, particularly animal-source foods, remain either unavailable or prohibitively expensive for the majority of Gaza's population.
With the onset of winter, UNICEF noted that "thousands of displaced families remain in makeshift shelters without adequate warm clothing, blankets, or protection from the elements."
The scale of the devastation is immense; the Gaza Strip requires an estimated 300,000 tents and prefabricated housing units to meet even the basic shelter needs of Palestinians, following the total destruction of infrastructure by Israel during two years of genocide.
UNICEF issued an urgent plea for the "simultaneous opening of all crossings leading into the Gaza Strip, accompanied by simplified and expanded clearance procedures, and allowing the passage of humanitarian relief through all available supply routes."
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