Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks in Gaza rises to 39,175

The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 39,175, health authorities in the besieged enclave said on Thursday.

A total of 90,403 people had been wounded in the besieged strip since the new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out last October, the health authorities said in a statement.

In the last 24 hours alone, the Israeli strikes killed 30 people in Gaza, according to the authorities.

The China-Africa Industrial Cooperation Conference was held in Beijing on Saturday, drawing over 500 attendees, including Chinese and African business leaders and diplomats.

Themed "Sharing Development Opportunities of Modernization", the event sought to foster collaboration between China and Africa across various sectors following the 2024 Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the largest diplomatic event hosted by China in recent years, which concluded on Friday.

"Certainly, we expect a lot more cooperation, particularly in the areas of energy. We have a serious challenge in terms of energy in my country Zambia following the effects of climate change and the droughts. The electricity generation capacity has been wiped out, so we need to diversify our energy sources with the expansion in solar and wind," said Ivan Zyuulu, Zambian Ambassador to China.

Abubakar Hassan Abubakar, assistant minister at Kenya’s Ministry of Trade, Investments and Industry, emphasized the importance of China's vast market to Kenyan producers who would benefit from strengthening trade ties between China and Kenya.

"Of course, we are expecting more cooperation because, as I had said, China is the largest trading partner in Kenya and now, we want to position ourselves for Kenya to be the largest investment partner. We want them to invest in and produce either agricultural or industrial products and serve the rest of the world, but also serve China itself because you can see that President Xi Jinping is opening up this market, and we want to take advantage of that market," he said.

The Alliance of Chinese Business in Africa for Social Responsibilities (ACBASR) published a new Blue Book at the conference about the "One Hundred Enterprises and One Thousand Villages" initiative, estimated to have benefited 10,000 people in Africa by supporting work to protect the rights and interests of women and children and promote environmental sustainability and community development.