Gaza deaths top 46,000 as one study suggests it could be much higher, and some pin ceasefire hopes on Trump

Tel Aviv — Israeli military strikes killed more than 600 people in the Gaza Strip in the first 10 days of 2025, pushing the death toll over 46,000 since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Hamas-run Palestinian territory’s health ministry, and one new estimate suggests it could be much higher. Israel launched the war after Hamas carried out its unprecedented terrorist attack, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

The total number of dead in Gaza represents a little more than 2% of the tiny enclave’s population, with an average of about 3,000 people killed each month or 100 killed each day since Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel 15 months ago.

Israel has rejected the figures provided by Palestinian officials and blames Hamas for all deaths in Gaza, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields. But new research published in The Lancet medical journal suggests the figure provided by the Gazan health ministry for the first nine months of the war could have been understated by as much as 40%. 

Gaza death toll an underestimate, Lancet study suggests

From the beginning of the war through June 30, 2024, Gaza’s heath ministry said just under 38,000 people had been killed by traumatic injuries, but the Lancet’s estimate — published in a peer-reviewed study based on data from health authorities, social media obituaries and an online survey — was that more than 64,000 people had been killed during that time.

CBS News is unable to independently verify the numbers, and Israeli authorities have prevented Western journalists from entering Gaza to report independently since the war started.

The Lancet noted that its estimate does not include thousands more people still believed to be buried under rubble, or those who have died from a lack of access to food, water or medical care during the war.  

“I am broken inside after losing my family,” 21-year-old Mahmoud Sukkar told CBS News’ local team in Gaza. All 17 members of his family were killed, including his mother, father and twin brother, when an Israeli strike hit their home in Gaza City in the first month of the war. 

Sukkar, the only survivor, now lives alone in a tent camp in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza. 

“I don’t have any wishes,” Sukkar said. “I want to visit my family’s graves. My only wish is to visit their graves.” 

Israel continues attacking Houthis in Yemen

As Israel continues its strikes against the remnants of Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces said Friday that its naval and air forces had struck multiple Houthi rebel targets on Yemen’s west coast and inland, including ports and a power station. 

The Houthis, like Hamas, are backed by Iran, and they’ve launched repeated missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping, U.S. and Israeli military vessels and Israeli territory in support of their allies since the war in Gaza began. The U.S. has also carried out many strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen over the last year.

“The Houthi terrorist regime is a central part of the Iranian axis of terror, and their attacks on international shipping vessels and routes continue to destabilize the region and the wider world,” said the IDF in a statement.

“As we promised — the Houthis are paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for their aggression against us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a separate statement.

Progress, but no breakthroughs in ceasefire talks

Iin Doha, Qatar, meanwhile, American and Arab negotiators have made “real progress” this week toward a deal between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage release in the waning days of the Biden administration, the U.S. president said Thursday, but it has not appeared sufficient for any major breakthrough to be announced, or to warrant higher-level officials flying back to the region.

“We’re making some real progress, I met with negotiators today,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “I’m still hopeful that we will be able to have a prisoner exchange. Hamas is the one getting in the way of that exchange right now, but I think we may be able to get that done, we need to get it done.”

U.S. envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk had been working to hammer out the technical details of a proposal, but Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea did not fly to Doha this week as Israeli media had said he might, and there was no indication that CIA chief William Burns was in Qatar, either. Both men have joined the talks repeatedly when there’s been hope of a potential agreement. 

One apparent sticking point in the talks has been the unconfirmed condition of 34 Israeli hostages in Gaza who were listed on a document that Hamas resurfaced this week after it first emerged last summer. Israel has demanded to know who on the list is still alive and who is dead. Hamas demanded a four-day ceasefire to contact its network of militants across Gaza to confirm the hostages’ condition, saying Israel’s ongoing operations made it impossible for the group to assess otherwise. 

Family members and friends of the hostages have protested regularly in Israel to demand that Netanyahu’s government strike a deal to bring them all home at the same time. Israeli officials believe about 100 hostages are still held by Hamas or its allies in Gaza, though at least 30 are believed to be dead. 

If a ceasefire does take shape, the first phase would involve a swap of hostages for Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, along with a surge in humanitarian assistance into Gaza. 

But another major hurdle is Hamas’ consistent demand that Israeli forces completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip — something Israel has thus far refused to accept. 

Some Israelis and Palestinians hope for “help from Donald Trump”

If a deal is not achieved by President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, some Israelis — and Palestinians — hope he will bring a needed change to the negotiations, potentially for the better. 

“He is unpredictable and he is brave,” Ilay David, brother of 24-year-old hostage Eyvatar David, told CBS News at a rally in Jerusalem on Friday afternoon. “We have to think out of the box, and Trump can bring that change.”

“Donald Trump is known for being mostly a businessman,” said 19-year-old Palestinian cybersecurity student Ameen Abu Fkheida at Birzeit University in Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “I don’t think he will be a friend [of Palestinians], but I do think there will be some sort of help from Donald Trump regarding the case of Gaza, which could probably be a ceasefire or an exchange of prisoners or something to deescalate the current situation in Gaza.”