Israel's war on Gaza militants will be "long and difficult", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Saturday as Hamas demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages it seized three weeks ago.
The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die in Gaza as Israel said ground forces were still operating inside the Hamas-run territory more than 24 hours after entering it on Friday.
And the head of the International Red Cross appealed for an end to the "intolerable" suffering of Gaza's civilians.
Israel unleashed a massive bombing campaign after Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 230 hostages, according to Israeli officials.
More than 8,000 people have since been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, half of them children, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the Palestinian territory said Saturday.
The Hamas authorities reported that a "large number" of people had been killed overnight in Israeli air 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.
Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service said it had dispatched first responders to the scenes of "reported rocket strikes". No casualties were reported.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned of "the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza", saying "thousands more civilians" could die.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, appealed Saturday for all sides to deescalate the conflict.
"It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza amid the massive bombardments, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible," she said.
"This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate."
