The Hamas-run health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza says 7,326 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the eruption of war with Israel on October 7.
The latest death toll includes 3,038 children killed, a ministry statement claims.
US President Joe Biden cast doubt this week on the death toll, which includes combatants, terrorists killed after crossing into Israel to slaughter people in their homes, and those killed by misfired Palestinian rockets.
However, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Hamas’s death toll figures have proved to be “credible” in previous conflicts.
“In the past, the five, six cycles of conflict in the Gaza Strip, these figures were considered as credible and no one ever really challenged these figures,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told reporters in Jerusalem earlier, AFP reports.
