The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 people, the Hamas-run health ministry said on Monday after nearly one month of bombardment by Israel. Most of the victims are civilians.
Hundreds of overnight strikes pushed the death toll in Gaza to 10,022, mostly women and children, a spokesperson for the health ministry told a press conference.
Two paediatric hospitals and Gaza's only psychiatric hospital were hit, the ministry said, after the director of another hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza reported he had counted 58 dead.
"These are massacres. They destroyed three houses over the heads of their inhabitants – women and children," one resident, Mahmud Meshmesh, told AFP.
Ceasefire calls
"We have already taken 40 bodies out of the rubble," he said as crowds prayed around corpses wrapped in white shrouds.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of building tunnels underneath hospitals, schools and places of worship in Gaza – allegations Hamas has denied.
Ground forces with tanks have flooded the northern half of the Gaza Strip and tightened an encirclement of Gaza City, effectively splitting the territory in two.
Israel's ally the United States sent its top diplomat Antony Blinken on a whirlwind Middle East tour.
'Enough is enough'
The heads of major United Nations agencies issued a joint statement also calling for a ceasefire inside the territory of 2.4 million people where an Israeli siege has cut off most water, food and fuel supplies.
"It's been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now," the statement said.
Israel has air-dropped leaflets and sent text messages ordering Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south.
A US official said on Saturday that at least 350,000 civilians remained in the worst-hit areas.
West Bank strikes
The Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened on Monday to allow the evacuation of foreigners and dual nationals, the Hamas government said, ending a two-day closure prompted by a dispute over the passage of ambulances.
The war has exacerbated tensions in the West Bank, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
