TEL AVIV — About 20,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the result of Israel's bombing campaign and ground invasion after Hamas' terror attack.
The Israel Defense Forces' near-relentless assault has displaced around 90% of the population and leveled 40,000 buildings, according to United Nations estimates, and is enabling what the organization calls an unfolding humanitarian disaster for Palestinian civilians who are searching for shelter, food, clean water and medical care.
Some 70% of those killed were women and children, the Health Ministry said. The numbers did not include many dead who are still buried in the rubble of bombed buildings, it added in a statement.
Throughout the war, health officials have released precise numbers of dead and injured. This changed Wednesday and Thursday, when they announced an estimate.
The grim milestone came 75 days after Hamas launched multipronged surprise attacks on Israel that left 1,200 people dead, according to officials in the country.
Around 240 people were also take hostage by the militant group, with more than 100 of them being freed during a pause in fighting late last month in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. Some said there had been a shortage of food while they were held, while others said they had been mistreated by their captors.
More than 120 people are believed to remain in Hamas' captivity, according to the latest figures from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
Describing Gaza as “the deadliest place for civilians in the world at this point in time,” George Readings, the International Rescue Committee’s lead crisis analyst, told NBC News in a phone interview Tuesday that the scale of the devastation was “intolerable.”
As of Thursday, only nine of Gaza's 36 hospitals were partially functional, according to the World Health Organization.
Rising death toll, mounting criticism
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the country’s offensive in Gaza until every hostage is freed and Hamas is eliminated from the enclave. But he is coming under mounting pressure from the United States and the international community to pause or end the fighting.
In perhaps his harshest criticism of Israel yet, President Joe Biden said earlier this month that Netanyahu's government was “starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
In comments during an off-camera campaign reception in Washington, Biden also suggested that the Israeli government was blocking progress toward a long-term solution, with far-right members in his Cabinet expressing opposition to a two-state solution.
Biden’s opinion is “the only one that really matters” on the international stage, Paul Salem, president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said Monday. As the only country actively supporting Israel, the U.S. is “the only one that could actively and seriously pressure Israel into a cease-fire," he said.
He added that in other Middle Eastern countries, public opinion toward Israel had been “massively enraged” by the war in Gaza, and “not one generation but several generations, have been marked in a deep, deep way.”
"I cannot recall when an Israeli war had such an impact," he said. "Previous Israeli wars were much briefer," he said, adding this was something Israel — which has normalized relations with several of its neighbors and was attempting to build bridges with several others — would have to take into account.
Within Israel, Netanyahu's approval ratings have also plummeted in recent weeks, with his government facing public anger over its failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attacks and its subsequent inability to secure the release of the remaining hostages.
This weekend's announcement that the country's military had mistakenly killed three hostages who were holding a white cloth on a stick fueled further outrage.
Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim and Samer Talalka were shirtless when they were shot, an IDF official said Saturday. At least one of them cried out for help in Hebrew before they were killed, the official added.
