More than 10,000 children killed in Gaza since October 7, Save the Children says

Death toll continues to rise as Israeli air strikes hit southern Gaza

Displaced Palestinian children collect food from volunteers near Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Bloomberg

Live updates: Follow the latest news on Israel-Gaza

More than 10,000 children have been killed in almost 100 days of war in Gaza, Save the Children reported, quoting figures from the enclave's Health Ministry.

The deaths amount to almost 1 per cent of the estimated 1.1 million children in Gaza.

“For every day without a definitive ceasefire, 100 children on average have been killed," said Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, in a statement.

"There can never be any justification for killing children. The situation in Gaza is monstrous and a blight on our common humanity."

A total of 23,469 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the ministry, with women and children making up about 70 per cent of the casualties.

Most of those have been killed by Israeli air strikes and shelling, which have pounded the densely populated enclave daily since the start of the war on October 7.

Another 60,000 Palestinians have been wounded, ministry spokesman Ashraf Al Qudra said.

The ministry said Israeli forces killed 112 Palestinians and injured 194 on the 97th day of the war, which began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people on October 7.

On Thursday night, nine people were killed in an Israeli air strike on the house of the Abu Saneh family, on a street near Rafah in southern Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported.

A separate air strike killed eight people in the Manara neighbourhood of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, witnesses and medical sources said.

Five civilians were also reportedly killed by Israeli shelling in the Zawaida area of central Gaza, the sources said.

The rising death toll comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israel to limit civilian casualties, during his latest visit to the region last week.

Mr Blinken told reporters during a trip to Israel that fighting against an enemy who hides among civilians is “incredibly challenging” but said the daily toll on civilians in Gaza, particularly on children, was "far too high”.

Hamas, which Israel has vowed to destroy, has been accused of using civilians as "human shields". The group denies the accusations.

Israel is currently defending itself from accusations of genocide in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The case has been brought by South Africa, which argues that Israel's indiscriminate bombing of Gaza amounts to genocide and "cannot credibly be argued to be a manhunt for members of Hamas".

Israel's bombardment has created conditions that "cannot sustain life" in the enclave and were "beyond any acceptable legal, let alone humane, justification", South Africa's delegation told the court.

The Israeli government dismissed the claims as "false and baseless" and said its military campaign to "eliminate Hamas" would continue.