Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip overnight, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to travel to Egypt on Thursday for more talks aimed at containing Israel's war against Hamas.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to hold talks Wednesday with the head of the Palestinian Authority, which Washington hopes could govern Gaza after Israel's war with Hamas ends.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head Thursday to the Middle East as fears mount that Israel's war in Gaza will spread across the region, following deadly blasts in Iran and the killing of a Hamas leader in Lebanon.

The chief of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, warned Israel on Wednesday against waging war on Lebanon, a day after a strike killed Hamas's deputy leader in the southern Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah.

A high-level security official in Lebanon said that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in a strike by Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement's shock October 7 attacks.

The war in Gaza ground into the new year on Monday, with Hamas firing a barrage of rockets at Israel just as the clock struck midnight and two dozen people killed overnight in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian territory.

Israeli shelling near a southern Gaza hospital has killed 41 people over the past two days, the Palestinian Red Crescent said, after Israel stepped up its attacks in the centre and south of the besieged territory.

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of New York on Thursday, staging a mock funeral in a demonstration against Israel's continued heavy bombardement of the besieged Gaza strip.

The United Nations Security Council was expected to vote Friday on a resolution to boost aid to Gaza, as the world body warned the Israel-Hamas war was pushing the Palestinian territory towards famine.

Israel has ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza's main city as diplomats pressed on with efforts to secure a pause in the war that Hamas says has claimed 20,000 lives.

The head of Hamas was due in Egypt on Wednesday for talks on a fresh ceasefire in Gaza, after Israel said it was willing to agree to another pause in exchange for more hostages.

Israeli troops battled Hamas fighters Thursday in the heart of southern Gaza's main city where a top militant leader is believed to be hiding, while pressing their offensive across the besieged territory.

The focus of the conflict has shifted to the besieged territory's south following fierce fighting and bombardment that reduced much of the north to rubble and forced nearly two million people to flee their homes.

13 Israelis who had been held in the Gaza strip were freed as part of a cease fire

The lives of Gazans have been turned upside down since militant group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a four-day truce that would see the Palestinian group release dozens of hostages taken on October 7, both sides announced Wednesday.

Israel's campaign to crush Hamas ground into its second month Wednesday as its forces battled the Palestinian militants in Gaza City, despite mounting calls for a ceasefire.

Fighting in the war-torn Gaza Strip raged for a 20th day Thursday after Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron evoked an international coalition along the lines of the one that defeated Islamic State (IS) extremists in Iraq and Syria to fight Palestinian militant group Hamas but such an idea will struggle to even get off the ground, experts say.

US President Joe Biden's administration is treading a tightrope on Israel, with Washington firmly backing its ally while urging caution and calling for pauses in the fighting to get aid into Gaza.

Jon Polin says he has watched the video of his seriously wounded son being hustled into the back of a truck by Hamas gunmen countless times.

Desperately needed international aid piled up Friday near Gaza, with Palestinians in dire need of food and water after relentless bombing by Israel, still reeling from the bloodiest attack in its history.

President Joe Biden made an impassioned call for the United States to show global leadership by backing Israel and Ukraine, saying in a speech from the Oval Office Thursday that defeating Hamas and Russia was a vital US interest.

The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday calling for a "humanitarian pause" in the raging Israel-Hamas conflict as the text did not respect Israel's right to defend itself, the US ambassador said.

Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, blamed the hospital attack on Israel, calling it a "massacre" and a "brutal crime", while Israel's army blamed a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad, another Gaza-based militant group.

In the days following Hamas' bloody attack on Israel, many Arab and Muslim Americans have worried over signs of a return to the atmosphere of suspicion that hung over their communities in the United States after 9/11.

The stench of death is overwhelming in Israel's National Center of Forensic Medicine, where experts have been trying to identify the remains of hundreds of people slain in the Hamas attacks.

US President Joe Biden will pay a solidarity visit to Israel on Wednesday following the Hamas attacks, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also announced that Israel had agreed to work on civilian aid for Gaza.

Colombia on Monday said Israel's ambassador should leave the South American country before rowing back comments amid a worsening spat over President Gustavo Petro's remarks on the war with Hamas.

The funds would be used to help more than 1.2 million people, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, adding that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.