Israeli forces pushed deep into northern Gaza's Jabalia on Thursday, while carrying out massive airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah.

The grueling pace of Israel's brutal war, now in its seventh month, highlighted the difficulty of achieving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aim of eradicating the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.

Armed members of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have continued to resist up and down the Gaza Strip, using heavily fortified tunnels to stage attacks in both the north – the focus of Israel's initial invasion – and new battlegrounds like Rafah.

Israel alleges four Hamas battalions are still now in Rafah along with hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 incursion but faces pressure from the United States, Europe and the United Nations not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians are sheltering.

"The operation in Rafah is still limited in space and in targets," military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani claimed Thursday, adding that its attacks were based on specific intelligence about militant activity.

More than 35,000 Gazans have already been killed, according to health officials in the coastal enclave and malnutrition is widespread as international aid efforts are blocked by the violence.

Israel says it needs to wipe out Hamas for its own protection after the deaths of 1,200 people on Oct. 7 and to free the 128 hostages still held out of 253 abducted by the Palestinian groups, according to its tallies.

The United States, meanwhile, anchored a temporary floating pier to a beach in Gaza on Thursday to boost aid deliveries but it was still unclear how it would be distributed given the challenges that have beset the United Nations and relief groups for months.

"Today at approximately 7:40 am (0440 GMT) United States Central Command personnel supporting the humanitarian mission to deliver additional humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in need anchored a temporary pier to the beach in Gaza," CENTCOM said in a post on social media platform X.

The US-built pier, announced in March by President Joe Biden and constructed at a cost of at least $320 million, is part of international efforts to circumvent restrictions on overland access into the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel, Washington's close ally.

"Trucks carrying humanitarian assistance are expected to begin moving ashore in the coming days," it added, with U.N. agencies to "receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza."

Israel declared major operations over in northern Gaza months ago while pledging to return to prevent Hamas from regrouping.

On Thursday, around a week after they moved back in, Israeli tanks were heavily bombarding the main market in the heart of Jabalia, a decades-old refugee camp, and several stores there caught fire, residents and Hamas media outlets said.

'Bombing like crazy'

Earlier, the armed wing of Hamas said its members in Jabalia had destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with a locally-made al-Yassin 105 anti-tank rocket, leaving members of the crew dead and wounded. The claim, however, could not be verified immediately.

"They are bombing like crazy, destroying the houses and the main market in the camp," one of the camp's residents told Reuters via a chat app.

"It seems they are acting this way because of the resistance operations that grilled their soldiers," he added, refusing to give a name for fear of reprisals.

Residents said tanks had also pushed back to near the entrance to the nearby northern city of Beit Hanoun and Israeli bulldozers were demolishing factories and property in the area.

Palestinian medical teams said they were aware of reports of casualties in Jabalia but were unable to reach them because of the intensity of the Israeli bombing and the active army incursion.

Among those killed were a Palestinian journalist, Mahmoud Jahjouh, and his family, medics and fellow journalists said.

Israeli says it has eliminated many gunmen in Jabalia but had no new comment on developments there on Thursday morning.

In Gaza City to the south, medical teams and the Civil Emergency services said they were continuing the search for casualties in the suburbs of Zeitoun and Sabra after dozens of bodies were recovered in the wake of a six-day army raid there.

In the southern tip of Gaza, tanks held their positions in eastern neighborhoods and the outskirts of Rafah while keeping up the pressure with aerial and ground bombardments.

Medics said one Israeli tank shell had landed in a square deep inside Rafah, killing one Palestinian and wounding several others while residents said clusters of homes on the edge of the city to where Israel has told civilians to evacuate had been blown up by the army.

They said heavy tank shelling struck three homes in the Brazil suburb of eastern Rafah, while medics reported that an airstrike on the edge of the city of Khan Younis further north had killed and wounded several people.