The Palestinian health ministry reported on Monday that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces since the start of 2023 has risen to 151.

The Ministry revealed that the recent Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which ended in a truce on Sunday, resulted in 33 Palestinian deaths – a threefold increase from the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in the same time frame in the prior year.

In 2022, the UN reported that 230 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, with 52 of them being slain between January and mid-May, including the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. This was the most lethal year for Palestinians since 2005.

By early May of this year, prior to the Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip, 128 Palestinians had already been killed by Israeli forces, primarily in the West Bank.

Israeli forces fatally shot Saleh Sabra, aged 22, from the Asker refugee camp in Nablus, during a raid on Monday.

This came shortly after the death of 30-year-old Aws Hamamdeh, who was injured in an Israeli raid on Qabatiya, near Jenin and later died of his wounds.

Last week, Israeli bombings in Gaza commenced following Palestinian factions launching rockets to Israel in reaction to the death of Palestinian leader Khader Adnan in an Israeli prison after a hunger strike that lasted 86 days in objection to his unjust detention.

The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, Francesca Albanese, stated on Friday that Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories have a “colonial” nature, and that the increasing violence from the Israeli occupation in the regions under its occupation are not coincidental, but rather occur in a cyclical pattern.

Albanese further remarked that the only way to end this situation is for the Israeli occupation to abide by international law.