GAZA: Fighting raged on Saturday across the Gaza Strip, whose health ministry reported a surging death toll.
It came even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Joe Biden discussed the post-war future of Gaza although the humanitarian situation remains dire.
Gaza's health ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours -- by far the largest such toll it has issued in days, and more than double the previous day's figure.
A correspondent reported gunfire, air strikes and tank shelling into the morning, particularly in southern Gaza's Khan Yunis city.
Israel is pressing its push southwards against Palestinian groups, after the army in early January said the command structure in northern Gaza had been dismantled, leaving only isolated fighters.
But the Palestinian armed wing of Hamas reported fierce combat with Israeli troops in north Gaza on Saturday.
The military said troops backed by air and naval support were striking infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip, including the north.
Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian groups. Its relentless bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 24,927 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry.
The United States provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid but has urged it to take more care to protect civilians.
Biden said it was still possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state, after the two leaders spoke for the first time in nearly a month.
Netanyahu had said that Israel "must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River", which "contradicts the idea of (Palestinian) sovereignty".
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Israel could not achieve "genuine security" without a "pathway to a Palestinian state" -- a goal sought by Palestinians for decades.
The United Nations estimates the war has displaced 1.7 million people, about one million of whom are crowded into the Rafah area in Gaza's far south, near Egypt.
UN agencies have warned better aid access -- including through Israel's Ashdod port -- is needed urgently as famine and disease loom.
Bread is a staple food for Palestinians but aid agencies said only 15 bakeries were operational across Gaza, the UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported.
The availability of water for drinking and domestic use "is shrinking every day", OCHA added.
Nearly 20,000 babies have been born in conditions "beyond belief" in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive, the UN children's agency UNICEF said.
Thousands of Gazan men may have been detained by Israeli forces during the war, often facing conditions that could amount to torture, the UN's human rights representative in the Palestinian territories, Ajith Sunghay, said on Friday. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
