Israel Strikes Gaza; Talks Continue

Israel bombarded the overcrowded Gaza city of Rafah, where it has launched a ground incursion, as talks resumed in Cairo aimed at agreeing the terms of a truce in the seven-month war.

Despite international objections, Israel sent tanks into Rafah and seized the nearby crossing into Egypt that is the main conduit for aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

The White House condemned the interruption to humanitarian deliveries, with a senior US official later revealing Washington had paused a shipment of bombs last week after Israel failed to address US concerns over its Rafah plans.

The Israeli military said hours later it was reopening another major aid crossing into Gaza, Kerem Shalom, as well as the Erez crossing.

But the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said the Kerem Shalom crossing -- which Israel shut after a rocket attack killed four soldiers -- remained closed.

It came after a night of heavy Israeli strikes and shelling across Gaza. Footage showed Palestinians scrambling in the dark to pull survivors, bloodied and caked in dust, out from under the rubble of a Rafah building.

Al-Ahli hospital said a strike on an apartment in devastated Gaza City killed seven members of the same family and wounded several other people.

The war was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians.

Israel in response vowed to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,844 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Militants also took about 250 hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, among them 36 the military says are dead.