By: Wafaa Shurafa And Julia Frankel

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the territory’s Health Ministry said Thursday. 

Israel’s offensive has also wounded 92,401 people and displaced over 85 per cent of the population from their homes, the ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its toll.

The announcement came during yet another push from international mediators to broker a cease-fire in the war, now in its 11th month. 

The conflict began Oct. 7 after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people — most of them civilians — and dragging roughly 250 hostages to Gaza.

Israel says 111 of the captives have not been released, including the bodies of 39. The hostages include 15 women and two children under the age of 5.

In Gaza, health officials have struggled to fully identify the dead as bodies stream into overwhelmed hospitals and morgues where they say the count is compiled amid the chaos of war and displacement.

In its most recent detailed report on the dead, issued Thursday, the ministry said 40,005 people have been killed. Health officials and civil defence workers say the true toll is likely thousands higher, since many bodies remain buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed in airstrikes.

Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history.

The bombardment and shelling have killed entire Palestinian families. With cemeteries often unreachable, families fleeing Israeli airstrikes bury their dead wherever possible — in backyards, along roadsides and under the staircases of their homes.

Israel says it aims to eliminate Hamas. It blames Hamas for civilian deaths because militants operate in civilian areas and have built extensive tunnel networks underneath them. Israeli forces have regularly targeted mosques, schools, hospitals and cemeteries where it claims fighters or tunnels are located, often causing civilian casualties.

The fighting has also killed 329 Israeli soldiers. The Israeli military claims that over 17,000 Hamas fighters are among those killed in Gaza but has not provided evidence.

Nearly 85 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, fleeing multiple times across the territory to escape ground offensives. During the war, thousands within Israel and in southern Lebanon have also been displaced.

The assault has created a massive humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The entire territory is at high risk of famine and over 495,000 people — more than a fifth of the population — are expected to experience the most severe level of hunger in the coming months, according to the latest report by the leading authority on measuring hunger. 

Also, Gaza’s sanitation systems have been destroyed, leaving pools of sewage and towers of garbage in tent camps packed with displaced families.

The offensive likely either damaged or destroyed 59 per cent of all structures in Gaza by July 3, including 70 per cent of buildings in northern Gaza, according to an analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, experts in mapping damage during war. 

The conflict has sparked fears of a wider regional war, with Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group and the Israeli military trading fire almost daily over their countries’ border. 

More than 500 people have been killed on the Lebanese side, including some 350 Hezbollah members and 50 fighters from other militant groups, with the rest being civilians. In Israel, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed. 

Meanwhile, international mediators held a new round of talks Thursday aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and securing the release of scores of hostages, with a potential deal seen as the best hope of heading off an even larger regional conflict.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt met with an Israeli delegation in Qatar as the Palestinian death toll from the 10-month-old war climbed past 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities. Hamas, which did not participate directly, accuses Israel of adding new demands to a previous proposal that had U.S. and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle.

White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby called the talks an important step and said they’re expected to run into Friday. He said a lot of work remains given the complexity of the agreement and that negotiators were focusing on its implementation.

A cease-fire in Gaza would likely calm tensions across the region. Diplomats hope it would persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to hold off on retaliating for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and of Hamas’ top political leader in an explosion in Tehran.

The mediators have spent months trying to hammer out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war in exchange for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Both sides have agreed in principle to the plan, which U.S. President Joe Biden announced on May 31. But Hamas has proposed “amendments” and Israel has suggested “clarifications,” leading each side to accuse the other of making new demands it cannot accept.

Gaps remain even after months of talks

Hamas has rejected Israel’s latest demands, which include a lasting military presence along the border with Egypt and a line bisecting Gaza where it would search Palestinians returning to their homes to root out militants. Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press the group is only interested in discussing the implementation of Biden’s proposal and not in further negotiations over its content.

A Palestinian official who closely follows the negotiations said Hamas would not take part in Thursday’s talks but that its senior officials, who reside in Qatar, were ready to discuss any proposals from the mediators, as they have in past rounds.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies Israel has made new demands, but he has also repeatedly raised questions over whether the cease-fire would last, saying Israel remains committed to “total victory” against Hamas and the release of all the hostages.

The most intractable dispute has been over the transition from the first phase of the cease-fire — when women, children and other vulnerable hostages would be released — and the second, when captive Israeli soldiers would be freed and a permanent cease-fire would take hold.

Hamas is concerned that Israel will resume the war after the first batch of hostages is released. Israel worries that Hamas will drag out the talks on releasing the remaining hostages indefinitely. Hamdan provided documents showing Hamas had agreed to a U.S. bridging proposal under which talks on the transition would begin by the 16th day of the first phase and conclude by the fifth week.

More recently, Hamas has objected to what it says are new Israeli demands to maintain a presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a road dividing northern and southern Gaza. Israel denies these are new demands, saying it needs a presence along the border to prevent weapons smuggling and that it must search Palestinians returning to northern Gaza to ensure they are not armed.

-With files from The Associated Press.