Israeli has battleed Hamas militants in pursit of its elusive goal of full control of northern Gaza but stopped short of demanding a ceasefire.
Thick smoke hung over the northern town of Jabalia on Saturday and residents reported persistent aerial bombardment and shelling from Israeli tanks, which they said had moved further into the town.
Hamas' armed wing Al Qassam Brigades said it had destroyed five Israeli tanks in the area, killing and injuring their crews, after reusing two undetonated missiles launched earlier by Israel.
Israel's chief military spokesperson said on Friday its forces had achieved almost complete operational control of northern Gaza and were preparing to expand the ground offensive to other areas in the Strip, with a focus on the south.
Almost 20,000 Gazans have been confirmed killed during the 11-week conflict, according to the Palestinian health ministry, with thousands more bodies believed trapped under rubble.
Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced.
Israel says 140 of its soldiers have been killed since it launched its ground incursion on 20 October, in response to , who killed 1200 people and took 240 hostages back into the enclave.
The significant escalation is the latest in a long-standing conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Joe Biden talks with Benjamin Netanyahu
United States President Joe Biden discussed the situation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, the White House said.
Biden declined to detail his conversation with Netanyahu, telling reporters it was a "private conversation."
"I did not ask for a ceasefire," he said.
Biden and Netanyahu talked in detail about Israeli's military operations in Gaza including "its objectives and phasing", the need to protect civilian lives and securing the release of hostages being held captive, the White House said.
US officials have said they want and expect Israel soon to shift its military operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase during which there will be more targeted operations focused on the Hamas leadership and its infrastructure.
Hamas says contact lost with group holding five Israeli hostages
Hamas says it has lost contact with a group responsible for five Israeli hostages being held captive in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardment.
The Palestinian Islamist group believes the hostages were killed during an Israeli raid, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, was quoted as saying in a statement on the group's Telegram channel.
Hamas said last month that more than 60 hostages were missing due to Israeli air strikes.
There has been no confirmation of that number but Israel believes that 20 or more of the 130 hostages still held in Gaza are dead.
The that included the release of 240 Palestinian woman and teenagers from Israeli jails.
"We shall press ahead, for every fallen soldier, too. Until Hamas is eliminated. Until the hostages are returned," Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz, a member of the security cabinet, posted on X.
Families of the hostages held a new rally on Saturday, demanding that Israel consider releasing senior Palestinian militants from jail in any new swap deal.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said at least 18 Palestinians were killed and dozens others wounded in an air strike on a house in Nusseirat, central Gaza, late on Friday.
Health officials and Hamas media said separately that an Israeli air strike on a house in Nusseirat refugee camp killed three people including a journalist from Hamas' Aqsa TV channel and two relatives.
The reporter's death brings to according to a tally by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths and blames Iran-backed Hamas for operating in densely populated areas, arguing that Israel will never be safe until the group is eliminated.
Sirens warning of possible missile attacks from Gaza rang out across southern Israel on Saturday for the first time in about two days.
Israel has long urged residents to leave northern areas of Gaza but its forces have also been bombarding targets in central and southern parts of the tiny coastal enclave.
Israeli officials say the country permits "aid deliveries at the required scale" in the Gaza Strip. Source: AP / Fatima Shbair
An Israel-affiliated merchant vessel in the Arabian Sea off India's west coast was struck by an unmanned aerial vehicle, causing a fire, British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Saturday.
After days of wrangling to avert a threatened US veto, the UN Security Council on Friday passed a resolution urging steps to allow "safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access" to Gaza and "conditions for a sustainable cessation" of fighting.
The resolution was toned down from earlier drafts that called for an immediate end to 11 weeks of war and diluting Israeli control over aid deliveries, clearing the way for the vote in which the US, Israel's main ally, abstained.
Gilad Erdan, Israel's UN ambassador, said the Security Council should have focused more on freeing hostages held by Hamas and that concentrating on "aid mechanisms" was unnecessary as Israel permits "aid deliveries at the required scale".
