The death toll in Gaza has risen to 73,449 since Israel launched its war on the Palestinian enclave in October 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday, as a Palestinian rights group estimated that thousands of people may have been subjected to enforced disappearance during the conflict.
The ministry said nine Palestinians were killed and 18 injured over the past 48 hours. Hospitals received the bodies of nine victims, while another body was recovered from the rubble, according to the ministry's daily statistical report.
The ministry said other victims remain trapped beneath destroyed buildings or on roads, where ambulance and civil defense crews have been unable to reach them.
It did not provide details on the circumstances surrounding the latest deaths and injuries.
The ministry said the overall number of injured Palestinians since the start of the war has reached 174,472.
It also reported continued Israeli violations of a cease-fire that took effect Oct. 10, 2025. According to the ministry, 1,313 Palestinians have been killed and 4,361 injured in Israeli attacks or other violations since the cease-fire began.
The figures come as the Palestinian Center for Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons warned that between 2,500 and 3,000 people may have been subjected to enforced disappearance in Gaza during the war.
The center released the estimate Saturday, a day before the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. It said the estimate was based on an analytical study of 317 cases reported by families of missing people or documented in the field.
The center stressed that the sample did not represent the full number of missing or forcibly disappeared people in Gaza but said the findings contained indicators that warranted an investigation into whether enforced disappearance had occurred on a broader scale.
Of the 317 cases examined, 302, or 95.27%, involved men and 15 involved women. The sample included 41 children and 17 people aged 60 or older.
Gaza City had the highest number of documented cases, with 89, followed by northern Gaza with 74, Khan Younis with 59, central Gaza with 37 and Rafah with 32.
The center said 76 disappearances occurred during Israeli military raids on homes or the siege of neighborhoods. Another 60 cases involved people attempting to return home or retrieve essential belongings.
Forty-two cases were recorded during displacement or while people were passing through military checkpoints, while 39 involved people searching for food or waiting to receive humanitarian aid.
The organization also documented 22 cases connected to the siege or storming of medical facilities or the transfer of patients. Ten cases involved journalists or people carrying out field work.
The center separately estimated that between 4,000 and 5,000 people remain missing and are believed to be buried beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings. It stressed that these cases should not be classified as suspected enforced disappearances because their circumstances are different.
The issue of missing Palestinians has remained one of the war's most difficult unresolved issues. In April, the Palestinian Justice Ministry said more than 11,200 Palestinians had been reported missing or forcibly disappeared since October 2023, including more than 4,700 women and children.
The United Nations defines enforced disappearance as the arrest, detention or abduction of a person by state authorities or by actors operating with their authorization, support or acquiescence, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or reveal the person's fate or whereabouts.
The Palestinian center called for authorities to disclose the fate of all missing people and urged that the International Committee of the Red Cross be granted access to detainees. It also called for an independent international mechanism to investigate alleged enforced disappearances and hold those responsible accountable.
The mounting death toll has come alongside extensive destruction across Gaza. Palestinian authorities say most of those killed have been women and children, while the conflict has devastated civilian infrastructure across the enclave.
The United Nations has estimated that rebuilding Gaza could cost about $70 billion, underscoring the scale of destruction left by the war.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023 with U.S. support, following the Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 incursion into southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
