Israeli strikes pounded Gaza on Sunday as both sides near the end of a dark year and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 resistance will last for "many months."
At least 40 Palestinians were killed in overnight bombing in Gaza City, said the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, with 18 bodies recovered so far and many buried under the rubble.
"After the explosion we arrived at the scene of the strike and saw martyrs everywhere," said one local man after a building was hit. "Children are still missing, we can't find them."
The Israeli army reported killing around a dozen enemy fighters in multiple ground battles, air and tank strikes and said it had located Hamas tunnels, and explosives planted in a kindergarten.
As heavy combat raged on, 85% of besieged Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced, according to the UN, which warns of the growing risk of hunger and disease as desperate families shelter in makeshift tents against the winter cold.
The world has for months watched on in horror as the long-running Israel-Palestinian conflict exploded into the bloodiest ever Gaza war after Hamas launched its unprecedented resistance campaign on October 7.
Heavy bombardment, and a ground invasion launched three weeks into the war, have reduced vast areas of Gaza to a ruined wasteland and killed at least 21,822 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
More than 55,000 people have been injured, it said, at a time when most Gaza hospitals are either out of service or damaged and overwhelmed.
The Israeli army says 172 of its soldiers have been killed inside Gaza, and Netanyahu said Israeli forces had killed about 8,000 "terrorists" so far.
Days ago, Israel said soldiers had destroyed the Gaza City hideout, connected to a vast tunnel system, of Hamas's Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, whom they have labelled a "dead man walking."
