The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement that the strikes "claimed the lives of 35 martyrs and left dozens injured, most of them children and women".

In the space of a week, the Israeli army has announced the death of eight hostages who had been presumed to be alive -- five Israelis, two Thais and a French-Mexican dual national.

As Israel keeps up its campaign against Hamas, Arab leaders are mapping out ways to support post-war Gaza, placing one major condition on their involvement: a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

During the war that accompanied Israel's creation, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes and many took refuge in what would later become the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Pro-Palestine protests and counter-protests have been the center of attention in recent weeks

Officers also detained several people at Fordham University in New York and cleared an encampment set up inside a school building, officials said, and law enforcement were on standby at Columbia University across town after mass arrests the previous evening.

Washington has heightened pressure on all sides to reach a ceasefire -- a message pushed by Blinken, who was on his seventh regional tour since the Gaza war broke out in October.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly raised the issue with US President Joe Biden in a call at the weekend.

Blinken flew to Amman after talks with Gulf Arab leaders in Riyadh, part of his seventh tour of the region since the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

A senior Hamas official said Sunday that the Palestinian group had no "major issues" with the most recent truce plan.

The United Nations Security Council will vote Thursday on the Palestinians' application to become a full UN member state, several diplomatic sources have told AFP.

Amid escalating pressure for increased humanitarian aid access to Gaza, Israel's Cabinet has approved the opening of the Erez border crossing in northern Gaza.

Israeli farmer Yarden Zemach, 38, said he felt safe when picking avocados with Palestinians on October 5 -- just two days before the attack.

Biden has led a chorus of international anger over the attack on employees of US-based World Central Kitchen, who were distributing desperately needed food to a population on the verge of famine.

The usually bullish Netanyahu, 74, appears both physically and politically fragile.

Monday's deaths came as the Israeli army wrapped up a two-week military operation in and around the Al-Shifa Hospital which reduced the besieged territory's largest medical complex to charred ruins.

The war erupted after Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, resulting in about 1,160 deaths -- mostly civilians -- according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Besieged Gaza is in desperate need of aid and the United States said it would continue airdrops, despite pleas from Hamas to stop the practice after the Islamist group said 18 people had died trying to reach food packages.

Israel reacted furiously to the US abstention, as it allowed the resolution to go through with all the other 14 Security Council members voting yes.

"We'll go there. We're not going to leave. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again," said Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday.

The trip, Blinken's fifth to the region since the start of the nearly four-month-long war, will later include stops in Israel and Qatar.

Israel bombarded southern Gaza on Friday after it publicly sparred with its main ally the United States over the possibility of a Palestinian state, the creation of which Washington sees as the only pathway to a lasting peace.

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.

Two weeks ahead of Palestine's opening game at the 2023 Asian Cup in Qatar, the team is struggling to focus as war rages on in Gaza, where thousands have been killed.

The continued air strikes and the expansion of operations in the south came as the WHO warned on Wednesday that Gaza's population was in "grave peril", with France's president calling for a long-term ceasefire.

Israel's leaders have repeatedly vowed to keep up their offensive until Hamas is destroyed, and army chief Herzi Halevi signaled there would be no quick end to the war.

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.

The relief flights carrying food, medical supplies and winter gear are the first by the US military since the conflict began with the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel.

The Oslo Accords, which aimed to bring "peaceful coexistence" to Israel and the Palestinians, are now dead, one of the deal's architects, Norwegian peace worker Jan Egeland said.

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