Israeli Indiscriminate and relentless air strikes on Gaza continued yesterday defying ceasefire calls, as the death toll in the Palestinian enclave rose past 3,000, about one-third of them children. 

Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip with air strikes displacing around half of the 2.3 million Gazans from their homes. It has imposed a total blockade on the enclave, halting food, fuel and medical supplies, which are rapidly running out.

US President Joe Biden will visit Israel today to show support for its war on Hamas amid fears that escalating war may spiral into a wider Middle East conflict.

Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that controls Gaza after its fighters intruded into the Jewish state's territory on Oct 7. Israel said more than 1,400 people have been killed since then.

Scores of trucks carrying vital supplies for Gaza headed towards the Rafah crossing in Egypt yesterday, the only access point to the coastal enclave outside Israel's control, but there was no clear indication that they would be able to enter.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden's planned visit at the end of hours of talks with Netanyahu, in which he said Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He gave no details.

Washington is also trying to rally Arab states to help head off a wider regional war after Iran pledged "preemptive action" from its allies which include the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon.

After Israel, Biden is expected to travel to Jordan to meet King Abdullah and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

He will also meet Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which exerts limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007. The PA yesterday accused Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

LIFTING RUBBLE WITH BARE HANDS

In Jabalia, in the northern half of the Gaza Strip that Israel has ordered evacuated, frantic residents used their bare hands to lift chunks of concrete and metal, crying out when they located bodies from under rubble in a smoking bombing crater. Others ran with stretchers carrying the wounded.

A man emerged from a ruined building holding the limp body of a small boy in his arms.

Residents fleeing the north have crammed into southern areas such as Khan Younis but have found no respite from bombing there.

Amin Hneideq awoke to an explosion in Khan Younis that sent the window crashing down, lacerating his daughter's head. The bomb had missed his house but destroyed a home nearby, killing a family from the north that had sought shelter there.

"They brought them from the north just to strike them in the south," said Hneideq, weeping.

According to an Al Jazeera report, at least Palestinian 80 Palestinians died in in overnight Israeli air raids in southern Gaza.

1,200 PEOPLE TRAPPED UNDER RUBBLE

Some 1,200 people, among them about 500 minors, are believed to be trapped under the rubble in Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities. They based their estimates on distress calls they received.

"So many times medics say they hear victims scream, but they cannot do anything about it," said Mohammed Abu Selmia, general director of Shifa Hospital, Gaza's biggest medical centre, told AP.

'We hear people under the rubble shout, but we can't do anything'

Ahmad Shaheen, a doctor in Gaza, has described the desperate conditions in Gaza amid Israel's relentless bombardment.

"The situation is getting worse and worse. The bombing still goes on, it does not stop. They are bombing from all sides – from aircraft, the sea, the ground," Shaheen told Bosnian independent news website Istraga.

EVACUATION ORDER MAY BE WAR CRIMES

The United Nations human rights office yesterday said that Israel's siege of Gaza and its evacuation order for the north of the enclave could amount to a forcible transfer of civilians and be in breach of international law.

Israel has ordered more than one million Palestinians in northern Gaza to move to the southern part near the Egyptian border, announcing a ground invasion.

However, an Israeli army spokesperson yesterday said troops are preparing for the next phase of the war, but that may not be the expected ground invasion of Gaza.

"We are preparing for the next stages of war. We haven't said what they will be. Everybody's talking about the ground offensive. It might be something different," Richard Hecht said at a regular briefing with reporters.

Rights groups Amnesty and Human Rights Watch yesterday again accused Israel of using white phosphorus in its continuing military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, putting civilians at serious risk.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said only around 14 percent of Gazans had access to water through a single pipe to Khan Younis that Israel allowed to open for three hours on Monday.

Concerns about dehydration and diseases were high as water and sanitation services had collapsed.

"People will start dying without water," UNRWA said.

Israel says 199 hostages were taken to Gaza during the Hamas raid. Hamas released a video of one French-Israeli hostage, Maya Schem, calling on world leaders to help her and other captives get home.

In addition to trying to get aid through the Rafah crossing, Washington also wants it opened to let out Gazans with foreign passports, including several hundred Palestinian Americans. Some Gazans with dual nationality tried to reach Rafah yesterday but said it was impossible because of Israeli air strikes.

Even if the crossing opens, most Gazans will not be let out. Egypt has said it could allow medical evacuations but rejects any mass exodus, which it says would amount to an expulsion of Palestinians from their land.

CLASHES IN ISRAEL'S NORTH

Cross-border fighting has also intensified on a second front on Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Clashes there have been the deadliest since the last full-blown war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah group 17 years ago.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had killed four people who had tried to cross the border to plant explosives.

Israel ordered the evacuation on Monday of 28 of its villages near the Lebanese border.

ARRESTS SOAR IN THE OCCUPIED WEST BANK

There has also been an intensification of deadly clashes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, already engulfed in its worst unrest for years before the Hamas attacks from Gaza.

Since October 7, at least 650 people arrested in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 15 journalists have been killed since October 7, including 11 Palestinians, three Israelis and one Lebanese.