Key Points
- Israel says it has begun a long threatened ground invasion on Gaza.
- Hamas said hostage negotiations with Israel were progressing but stalled.
- The Red Cross has warned of an "intolerable level of human suffering".
Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza on Sunday, calling for civilians to flee south where it vowed aid would increase, as the Red Cross warned of "intolerable" suffering.
The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die in Gaza as , stepping up its ground operations inside the Hamas-run territory.
said on Saturday that Israeli forces had unleashed the second phase of the Gaza war as they pressed against Hamas militants, vowing to "destroy the enemy above ground and below ground".
Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu warned that the war would be "long and hard" and reiterated Israel's appeal to Palestinian civilians to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip where Israel was focusing its attack.
'Catastrophic failing'
Israel unleashed a massive bombing campaign after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on 7 October, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 230 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
Since then, relentless Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 8,000 people, half of them children, the health ministry in the territory said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority governs parts of the occupied West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza, said, “Our people in the Gaza Strip are facing a war of genocide and massacres committed by the Israeli occupation forces in full view of the entire world".
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, voiced shock Saturday at the "intolerable level of human suffering", urging all sides to de-escalate the conflict.
"This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate."
Thousands of buildings have been flattened in the overcrowded territory of 2.4 million people, with more than half the population displaced as Israel imposed a near-total siege.
Meanwhile hospitals are running out of medical supplies.
"Hospitals are flooded with patients, amputations and surgeries are being carried out without proper anesthesia, and morgues are flooded with dead bodies," surgeon for Médecins sans Frontières in Gaza, Dr Mohammed Obeid, said in a statement.
Without proper burials and clearance of dead bodies from the rubble, outbreaks of disease will pose an additional threat to the people of the Gaza Strip, the organisation said.
A battlefield
Israeli fighter jets dropped leaflets over Gaza City on Saturday, warning residents that the area was now a "battlefield", that shelters in northern Gaza were not safe, and they should "evacuate immediately".
The army delivered similar warnings earlier in its campaign, but many who fled south have returned home after failing to find refuge from Israeli bombing.
Palestinians inspect the damage of destroyed buildings caused by the ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, Saturday. Source: AAP / Abed Khaled/AP
Hamas authorities reported Sunday a "large number" of people killed overnight in strikes on two refugee camps in northern Gaza.
Israel's Home Front Command earlier warned residents in the southern cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon of incoming missile and rocket attacks.
The intense strikes against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, provided cover for Israeli ground forces to step up operations, ahead of an expected full-blown invasion.
"Since early Friday evening, combined combat forces of armour, combat engineers and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip," the Israeli army said late Saturday.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier that Israel was attacking "above the ground and below the ground" in the new phase of the war, alluding to the sprawling network of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk has warned of "the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza", saying "thousands more civilians" could die.
And as Israel sends troops and tanks further into Gaza, analysts cautioned of possible fallout threatening the entire Middle East, even as Western fears grow that Iran-backed Hezbollah could open a new front on the Lebanese border.
A UN peacekeeper was injured Saturday by shelling in south Lebanon, the mission's spokesman said, hours after reporting a hit at its headquarters as Israel-Lebanon border skirmishes intensify.
Hostage exchange?
Hamas's armed wing said it was ready to release the hostages it abducted if Israel freed all the Palestinian prisoners it was holding.
"The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners," Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said.
Hamas's leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said the group stood ready to make an "immediate" exchange.
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel. Source: AAP / Ohad Zwigenberg/AP
Facing increasing anger over the fate of the captives as Israel steps up its war on Hamas, Netanyahu met representatives of hostage relatives on Saturday.
Ifat Kalderon, whose cousin Ofer Kalderon is believed to be held in Gaza along with members of his family, told AFP she supported the idea of a prisoner release in exchange for the hostages.
"Take them, we don't need them here. I want my family and all the hostages to come back home," she said.
Netanyahu made no commitment to any exchange deal but assured hostage families Israel would "exhaust every option to bring them home".
Communications blackout
All communications and phone networks were cut across Gaza late Friday, sparking alarm as the Palestinian Red Crescent warned emergency calls were not getting through.
Human Rights Watch also cautioned the blackout could provide "cover for mass atrocities".
But on Sunday morning, global network monitor Netblocks said connectivity in Gaza was being restored, and Palestinian telecoms provider Jawwal said communication services were gradually resuming.
An AFP staff member in Gaza City confirmed early Sunday that he could use the internet and telephone network, and said he had managed to contact people by phone in southern Gaza.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has demanded a "pause of hostilities" to allow aid into Gaza, while the UN General Assembly has called for an "immediate humanitarian truce".
