Israel launched its biggest ground incursion into the Gaza Strip of the conflict overnight in preparation for a full scale ground invasion, while U.S. President Joe Biden incurred international anger after saying he had "no confidence" in the Palestinian death toll.

In besieged Gaza, humanitarian supplies remain critically low, as world powers failed to agree on a lull to the fighting to deliver aid, and residents buried the dead in mass graves as the civilian toll mounted. 

In an indication Israel was widening assaults into Gaza that began at the weekend, the military said ground forces attacked multiple Hamas targets in the enclave on Thursday, in what Army Radio described as the biggest incursion of the current conflict. Sending a column of tanks and infantry on the overnight raid, Israel announced the incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared preparations for a ground war were underway.  

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That's just hours earlier Netanyahu boasted of "raining down hellfire on Hamas" and killing "thousands of terrorists" in a nationally televised address to Israelis still grieving after Hamas's October 7 attacks, which killed 1,400 people. Israel has retaliated with heavy bombing that Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said has killed more than 6,500, with the toll expected to rise substantially if tens of thousands of Israeli troops massed near Gaza move in. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the conflict could spread beyond the Middle East and said it was wrong that innocent women, children and old people in Gaza were being punished for other people's crimes. "Our task today, our main task, is to stop the bloodshed and violence," said Putin in a meeting with Russian religious leaders of different faiths. "Otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East."

Meanwhile, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, said the Palestinian group Hamas was not a terrorist organization but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands. Unlike many of its NATO allies and the EU, Türkiye does not consider Hamas a terrorist group. The Turkish president also slammed Western powers for supporting Israel's bombing of Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire, the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and for Muslim countries to work together to stop the violence.

Reflecting concerns the Gaza conflict may spread, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel had agreed to delay invading Gaza until U.S. air defense systems can be placed in the region, as early as this week, to protect U.S. forces. Asked about the report, officials said Washington has raised its concerns with Israel that Iran and Iranian-backed groups could escalate the conflict by attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East. An Israeli incursion into Gaza could be a trigger for Iranian proxies, they said.

The Israeli-Gaza conflict has already sparked violence beyond the Palestinian territories. Israeli warplanes bombed Syrian army infrastructure on Wednesday in response to rockets fired from Syria, an ally of Iran. Israel has also targeted Syria's Aleppo airport and Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran, Israel's arch-enemy, which backs armed groups in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, as well as Hamas, has warned Israel to stop its onslaught on Gaza, but appears to be reticent to directly join the fighting. 

U.S. Security Council Gaza resolution vetoed

Russia and China on Wednesday vetoed a U.S. push for the United Nations Security Council to act on the Israel-Hamas conflict by calling for pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid access, the protection of civilians and a stop to arming Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip.

The U.S. put forward the draft resolution over the weekend, just days after it vetoed a humanitarian-focused draft from Brazil, arguing more time was needed for U.S.-led diplomacy. The initial U.S. text shocked many diplomats with its bluntness in stating Israel has a right to defend itself and demanding Iran stop exporting arms to militant groups. It did not include a call for humanitarian pauses for aid access. The final text was toned down before it was put to the vote, but for Security Council members, the resolution did not properly address the crisis.

Russia made a rival proposal that advocated a wider ceasefire, but failed to win the minimum number of votes, while Israel continues to resist any form of ceasefire, claiming that Hamas would only take advantage. "The [U.S.] draft does not reflect the world's strongest calls for a ceasefire, an end to the fighting, and it does not help resolve the issue," China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun told the council after the vote. "At this moment, ceasefire is not just a diplomatic term. It means the life and death of many civilians." 

China International Development Cooperation Agency said on Thursday it would provide 15 million yuan ($2.05 million) worth of humanitarian aid to the people living in Gaza, including food and medicine.

Meanwhile, EU leaders will on Thursday debate calling for a "humanitarian pause" in Israel's war on Gaza, with the 27-nation bloc split between more pro-Palestinian members such as Ireland and Spain, and staunch backers of Israel including Germany and Austria. After days of negotiations, a draft statement for the summit calls "for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including a humanitarian pause," but falls short of demands from the UN for a "ceasefire."

Biden doubts Gaza death toll 

As the death toll mounts in Gaza, Palestinians are burying the unidentified dead in mass graves, with a number instead of a name, residents say. Some families are using bracelets in the hope of finding their loved ones should they be killed.

Israeli retaliatory strikes have killed over 6,500 people, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Wednesday, while Biden suggested that the number of deaths incurred by blanket Israeli bombings had been inflated. The U.S. president said he had "no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using" for the death toll, but he did not say why he was skeptical. In the U.S., the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it was "deeply disturbed" by Biden's comments on the Gaza figures, and called on the president to apologize.

Meanwhile, Qatari news network Al Jazeera announced that the wife, son and daughter of one of its correspondents in Gaza were killed on Wednesday night in an Israeli air strike that the enclave's health ministry said killed at least 25 people. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strike, which the network said hit the area where Wael al-Dahdouh's family had fled to following an Israeli warning as it plans a Gaza ground incursion.

"Their home was targeted in the Nuseirat camp in the center of Gaza, where they had sought refuge after being displaced by the initial bombardment in their neighborhood, following Prime Minister Netanyahu's call for all civilians to move south," Al Jazeera said in a statement. It added other members of Dahdouh's family were buried under the rubble. "The network strongly condemns the indiscriminate targeting and killing of innocent civilians in Gaza, which has led to the loss of Wael Al-Dahdouh's family and countless others."

Israeli tanks and troops are massed on the border with Gaza awaiting orders, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying in his televised statement that Israel was "preparing for a ground invasion. I will not elaborate on when, how or how many." However, international pressure is growing to delay any invasion of Gaza in fear of both mass civilian casualties and the risk of the conflict spilling over into a wider conflict in the Middle East. There are also still hundreds of Israeli hostages in Gaza, more than half of whom are thought to have foreign passports from 25 different countries.

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