DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Gaza Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has passed 55,000. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said that women and children make up more than half the dead. Local hospitals said Wednesday that 21 people in Gaza were killed on their way to collect aid from food distribution sites. The circumstances of the deaths near the sites weren’t immediately clear. The Israeli army said it fired warning shots in central Gaza toward “uspects that posed a threat to troops. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said five of its local aid workers were killed in an attack that it blamed on Hamas. That account couldn’t immediately be confirmed.
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