Hamas says Gaza death toll tops 10,000 as Israel steps up war

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES — The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 people, the Hamas-run health ministry said Monday after nearly one month of bombardment by Israel whose offensive against Palestinian militants showed signs of intensifying.

Determined to destroy Hamas whose October 7 attack left 1,400 dead in Israel, most of them civilians, and saw over 240 hostages taken according to Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed no letup despite mounting calls for a ceasefire.

The White House said US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu discussed potential "tactical pauses" in a phone call Monday.

But no agreements were announced and the pair did not broach the possibility of a humanitarian ceasefire, which the United Nations says is urgently needed.

The dead in Gaza include more than 4,000 children, the health ministry said, while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters the bombarded territory was becoming a "graveyard for children".

Biden has previously questioned the validity of figures issued by the Gaza health ministry, though a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged Monday civilian casualties were "in the thousands".

Ground forces with tanks have flooded the northern half of the Gaza Strip and tightened an encirclement of Gaza City, effectively splitting the territory in two.

The Israeli army said it had pounded Gaza with "significant" strikes on 450 targets over 24 hours since Sunday morning, and that troops were targeting Hamas commanders in underground tunnels.

"We will be able to dismantle Hamas, stronghold after stronghold, battalion after battalion, until we achieve the ultimate goal, which is to rid the Gaza Strip -- the entire Gaza Strip -- of Hamas," Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.

However a top Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, said the group -- whose militants fired 16 rockets from Lebanon towards northern Israel on Monday -- would never accept a puppet government in Gaza and that "no force on Earth could annihilate" it.

And Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels claimed they had launched a fresh drone attack against Israel, escalating a campaign of disruptive strikes amid fears the war could widen.

Israel