Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks on Gaza rises to 38,983

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 38,983, the Gaza-based health authorities said on Sunday, reported Xinhua.

During the past 24 hours, the Israeli military killed 64 people and wounded 105 others, bringing the total death toll to 38,983 and injuries to 89,727 since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out in early October 2023, it said in a statement.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that IDF troops are continuing to operate in the Gaza Strip from land, air, and sea.

During operations in the Rafah area in southern Gaza, "an IDF aircraft identified an armed terrorist cell advancing toward troops, who responded swiftly and eliminated the cell," said the IDF.

"In the central Gaza Strip, IDF troops conducted targeted operations on multiple military structures, locating various types of weaponry," it added.

In a separate statement on Sunday, the IDF said it discovered the poliovirus in the Gaza Strip and launched a campaign to vaccinate its ground troops.

Six environmental samples of variant poliovirus type 2 have been detected from Khan Younis and Deir al Balah in Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on social media platform X on Friday, noting that no paralytic cases have been detected.

"The decimation of the health system, lack of security, access obstruction, constant population displacement, shortages of medical supplies, poor quality of water, and weakened sanitation are increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio," it added.

Polio, or Poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under five, and the virus is primarily spread via person-to-person transmission, mainly through the fecal-oral route, according to the WHO.