The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Thursday that the death toll from the war with Israel in the Palestinian territory had reached 47,583.

A ceasefire in Gaza agreed between Hamas and Israel has ushered in a fragile peace since January 19.

But the number of dead, published by Gaza’s health ministry, continues to rise every day as bodies discovered under the rubble are identified or people die from earlier wounds.

During the past 24 hours, 31 further deaths were recorded by the ministry, which also registered 111,633 wounded from the war.

Israel has repeatedly cast doubt on the ministry’s figures, but they are considered reliable by the United Nations.

A study published in early January in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the death toll in Gaza due to hostilities during the first nine months of the conflict was about 40 percent higher than the figures recorded by the Gaza ministry of health.

AFP is unable to independently verify the conflict’s death toll.

Since the start of the war, triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 2023 attack on Israel, access to Gaza for foreign journalists has been prohibited by Israel with the exception of those embedded with military units for brief excursions.