The Gaza death toll has topped 46,000 as one study suggests it could be much higher, while others hope for a cease-fire from Trump.

Tel Aviv – Israeli military strikes have killed more than 600 people The Gaza Strip in the first 10 days of 2025, pushing the death toll to more than 46,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority, and new estimates suggest it could be much higher. Israel launched the war after Hamas launched its unprecedented attack, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

The death toll in Gaza represents just over 2% of the tiny territory's population, with an average of about 3,000 people killed each month or 100 killed each day since Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel 15 months ago.

Israel rejected the figures provided by Palestinian officials and blamed Hamas for all the deaths in Gaza, accusing the group of using civilians as human shields. But a new study published in the medical journal The Lancet suggests that the number provided by Gaza's health ministry in the first nine months of the war may have been underestimated by as much as 40%.

The death toll in Gaza is staggering, Lancet research suggests

From the beginning of the war until June 30, 2024, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that less than 38,000 people were killed due to serious injuries, but the Lancet estimate – published in a peer-reviewed study based on data from health authorities, social media and social media. an internet survey – was that more than 64,000 people had been killed during that time.

CBS News cannot independently verify the numbers, and Israeli authorities have barred Western journalists from entering Gaza to report independently since the war began.

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

“I'm broken inside after losing my family,” Mahmoud Sukkar, 21, told CBS News' local group in Gaza. All 17 members of his family were killed, including his mother, father and twin brother, when an Israeli airstrike 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, central Gaza.

“I have no ambitions,” said Sukkar. “I want to visit my family's graves. My wish is to visit their graves.”

Israel continues to attack the Houthis in Yemen

As Israel continues to attack the remnants of Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces said on Friday that its army and air force had carried out several strikes. The Houthi rebels on the west coast of Yemen and inland, including ports and a power station.

The Houthis, like Hamas, are backed by Iran, and have launched repeated missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels, US and Israeli naval vessels and Israeli territory supporting their allies since the start of the war in Gaza. The US has also carried out several strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year.

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

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

Progress, but no progress in ceasefire talks

Meanwhile, in Doha, Qatar, US-Arab talks have made “real progress” this week on an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the conflict and the release of hostages in the waning days of the Biden administration, the US president said on Thursday, but it did not appear to be enough for any major breakthrough to be announced, or to warrant high-ranking officials flying back to the region.

“We're really making progress, I met with negotiators today,” Mr. Biden told reporters at the White House. “I still hope that we will be able to exchange prisoners. Hamas is the one that is disrupting that exchange right now, but I think we can do that, we need to do it.”

US envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk have been working to clarify the technical details of the proposal, but Israeli intelligence chief David Barnea did not fly to Doha this week as Israeli media had said, and there is no indication that CIA chief William. Burns was in Qatar, though. Both men joined the talks several times when there was hope that an agreement might be reached.

One of the sticking points in the talks has been the unconfirmed status of 34 Israeli hostages in Gaza listed by Hamas which resurfaced this week after first appearing last summer. Israel wanted to know who was still alive on the list and who was dead. Hamas called for a four-day ceasefire to contact its military team across Gaza to confirm the condition of the hostages, saying ongoing Israeli operations made it difficult for the group to check otherwise.

Family members and friends of the hostages have protested regularly in Israel demanding that Netanyahu's government strike a deal to bring them all home at once. Israeli officials believe around 100 hostages are still being held by Hamas or its allies in Gaza, although at least 30 are believed to have died.

If the ceasefire is not established, the first phase will include the exchange of Palestinian hostages held in Israeli prisons, and an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza.

But another major obstacle is Hamas's persistent demand for a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip – something Israel has so far refused to accept.

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

If an agreement is not reached by the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20, some Israelis – and Palestinians – hope that he will bring the necessary change to the negotiations, possibly for the better.

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

“Donald Trump is best known for being a businessman,” said 19-year-old Palestinian student who teaches cybersecurity Ameen Abu Fkheida at Birzeit University in Ramallah, in the Israeli-controlled West Bank. “I don't think you will be a friend [of Palestinians]but I think there will be some kind of help from Donald Trump regarding the Gaza case, maybe a ceasefire or a prisoner exchange or something that will de-escalate the current situation in Gaza.”