A day after Israel's military chief said that the war on Gaza would take months, Israeli forces pummeled central Gaza by land, sea and air Wednesday while a telecommunications outage hit rescue efforts across the enclave.
The continued brutality comes despite serious concerns voiced by the United Nations over growing civilian casualties.
"We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve," said U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango.
On Wednesday, five Palestinians were killed in one air strike In central Gaza's Al-Maghazi district, medics said, while to the north in Gaza City health officials said the bodies of seven Palestinians killed overnight arrived at Al Shifa Hospital.
Residents also reported heavy fighting east and north of the Al-Bureij district and in the nearby village of Juhr Ad-Deek, where they said Israeli tanks are stationed.
Israel's military Wednesday reported three more soldiers were killed in Gaza, bringing the total military losses in the enclave since ground operations began on Oct. 20 to 166.
Nearly 21,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Israel intensified its raids this week, particularly in a central area just south of the waterway that bisects the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army told civilians to leave the area, though many said there was no safe place left to go.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) released footage taken mostly on Monday and Tuesday at several Gaza hospitals, with WHO emergency medical team coordinator Sean Casey saying Gaza's health capacity was 20% of what it was 80 days ago.
"There's blood everywhere in these hospitals at the moment," said Casey, adding that nowhere in Gaza was safe.
"We're seeing almost only trauma cases come through the door and at a scale that's quite difficult to believe, it’s a bloodbath as we said before, it's carnage."
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported a complete loss of communication with its teams working in the Gaza Strip due to telecommunications and internet services disruption.
It said in a statement that the VHF radio communication network, the sole means of communication during the blackout, sustained damage from artillery shelling that hit part of its headquarters in Khan Younis, posing a challenge for emergency medical teams trying to reach the wounded and injured.
"We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve," U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango said Tuesday.
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza also crossed the grim 21,000 mark on Wednesday, while thousands more are feared to be buried under rubble. Nearly all the enclave's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many several times.
Gaza authorities buried 80 unidentified Palestinians on Tuesday whose bodies were handed over by Israel through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the Health Ministry said.
According to the Islamic Waqf, or religious affairs ministry, the bodies were collected from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
In Washington, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer discussed planning for what happens when the war ends, including governance and security in Gaza.
The two also discussed efforts to bring home the remaining hostages and a transition to a different phase of the war to focus on Hamas leaders when they met Tuesday, a U.S. official said.
The United States has pressed Israel in recent weeks to scale down its war to a more targeted operation. But Washington is still seen in the region as a supporter of Israel and U.S. forces have been attacked by Iran-backed militants in the Middle East.
In an interview with Egyptian TV, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel intended to stay in Gaza after the war "but the whole world does not agree with it."
He said the U.S. could "order" Israel to agree that Gaza becomes part of a future Palestinian state.
