WATCH: Noor Harazeen reports on the latest from Gaza
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron have expressed their concern about getting aid into Gaza and the risks of the Israel-Hamas conflict spreading after the leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.
Israeli forces have expanded their ground operations in Gaza while their fighter jets have struck hundreds more Hamas targets in what Israel called the second phase of the three-week escalation.
Sunak and Macron have both visited Israel and neighboring countries since the deadly rampage by Hamas gunmen in Israel early this month that triggered the conflict.
"The leaders stressed the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support into Gaza. They agreed to work together on efforts both to get crucial food, fuel, water and medicine to those who need it and to get foreign nationals out," a Sunak spokesperson said.
"They expressed their shared concern at the risk of escalation in the wider region, in particular in the West Bank."
Plumes of smoke rise during Israeli strikes on Gaza City. /Yasser Qudih/Reuters
According to Macron's office, the leaders also reaffirmed Israel's right to defend itself within the limits of international law and the importance of finding a way to release the hostages held by Hamas.
Gazans searched for loved ones and heard news of family members killed as communications gradually returned to the enclave on Sunday after a near-total blackout as Israel's troops and armor pushed into the Hamas-ruled enclave.
The UN also warned that Palestinians were desperate for food and that civil order was breaking down after three weeks of war with Hamas militants and a siege on the densely populated coastal strip.
The fighting intensified on Friday night as Israeli forces waged ground operations in Gaza in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as the second phase of the war aimed at crushing Hamas.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Tel Aviv earlier this month. /Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
Shaban Ahmed, a public servant who works as an engineer and has five children, described the Israeli attacks as "doomsday". "This morning, Sunday, I discovered that my cousin has been killed in an air strike on their house on Friday," Ahmed, who stayed in Gaza City despite an Israeli warning to evacuate south, said.
"We only knew today. Israel cut us off from the world in order to wipe us out, but we are hearing the sounds of explosions and we are proud the resistance fighters have stopped them at meters distance."
Hamas 'hiding behind civilian population'
Israel must protect innocent Gaza residents by distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilians in the Palestinian territory, the White House warned on Sunday.
Israel's military has been urged to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, where health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 8,000 people have already died in three weeks of air strikes that Israel has conducted in retaliation for Hamas's unprecedented deadly attacks on October 7.
Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, say 8,005 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's campaign to obliterate Iran-backed Hamas. The Hamas militants who control Gaza have embedded themselves among the Palestinian population and in civilian infrastructure, making an operation against them extremely difficult, National Security Advisor of the U.S. Jake Sullivan said.
"That creates an added burden for Israel but it does not lessen Israel's responsibility under international humanitarian law, to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, and to protect the lives of innocent people, and that is the overwhelming majority of the people in Gaza."
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Palestinians were struggling to find loved ones in the bloody chaos as the growing humanitarian crisis squeezed Gaza. In another part of Gaza, people looked for survivors after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Nasir neighborhood.
Many people have been glued to rusty radios for news, which had become the only means to get information on the heaviest Israeli air strikes ever on narrow Gaza, one of the most densely populated spots in the world, with the internet and phones down. Medical services became so stretched that ambulances were no longer taking calls. People hit by bombings relied on volunteers to take them for treatment.
Iran "does not want crisis to engulf region"
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Sunday said Iran does not want war to "spread out" following the escalation of tensions between Israel and Hamas. Amirabdollahian added claims linking Iran to the Hamas attack are "baseless".
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan on Sunday visited the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt and posted a video on X social media, saying he hopes to visit the Gaza strip and Israel while he is in the region.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Sunday the killing of Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah in Lebanon on October 13 was the result of a targeted strike from the direction of the Israeli border.
Lebanon's Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone southeast of Lebanon with a surface-to-air missile on Sunday afternoon, downing it in Israeli territory.
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