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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has convened Israel's expanded emergency cabinet for the first time on Sunday, saying the national unity on display sent a message at home and abroad as the country gears up to "demolish Hamas" in Gaza.
Key points:
- Israel has urged Palestinians to flee south as a ground assault is imminent
- Gaza families who have lost loved ones fear more devastation
- Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are running low on supplies as they treat wounded
The meeting, held in military headquarters in Tel Aviv, began with ministers standing for a moment's silence in memory of the 1,300 Israelis killed in Hamas' shock October 7 attack, a video released by Mr Netanyahu's office showed.
Welcoming former opposition lawmaker Benny Gantz, who joined the government along with several members of his party last week, Mr Netanyahu said all ministers were "working around the clock, with a united front".
"Hamas thought we would be demolished. It is we who will demolish Hamas," Mr Netanyahu said.
He added that the show of unity "sends a clear message to the nation, the enemy and the world".
Israel has responded to the Hamas attack with the most intense bombardment Gaza has ever seen, putting the small enclave, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under siege and destroying much of its infrastructure.
LoadingAuthorities in Gaza said more than 2,300 people had been killed, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 injured so far.
The enclave's hospitals are running short of medical supplies and struggling to cope with the flow of injured.
Palestinians fear more destruction
Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip who have lost multiple family members are bracing themselves for more destruction if Israel hits back in an unprecedented attack on its territory.
Israel has told Palestinians to leave their homes and move south.
Hamas urged people not to leave and said roads out were unsafe.
It said dozens of people had been killed in strikes on cars and trucks carrying refugees on Friday, while medics, Hamas media and relatives say whole families have been killed in the air strikes.
Reuters could not independently verify these claims.
Um Mohammad Al-Laham sat next to her 4-year-old granddaughter Fulla Al-Laham, who lay in a Gaza hospital which like others is operating on low supplies of medicine and fuel.
She said an Israeli air strike hit the family home, killing 14 people including Fulla's parents, siblings and members of her extended family.
"All of a sudden and without warning, they bombed the house on top of the residents inside," she said.
"No-one survived except my grandchild Fulla.
"May God cure her and give her strength.
"Fourteen people martyred, no-one was left except Fulla Saeed Al-Laham. She doesn't talk, nothing, just lays in her bed and they give medicine."
One other 4-year-old child in the family had also been left with almost no relatives, the grandmother said.
Some residents said they would not leave, remembering the "Nakba," or "catastrophe," of 1948 when many Palestinians were forced from their homes during the war that accompanied Israel's creation.
Israel has intensified its bombings across Gaza City and the north.
Gaza residents attempt to flee
Rescue workers searched desperately for survivors of night-time air raids.
One million people have reportedly left their homes.
The expected Israeli ground offensive combined with the air strikes themselves have raised fears of unprecedented suffering in the narrow, impoverished enclave.
Witnesses in Gaza City told Reuters the Israeli offensive had forced more people from their homes.
Gaza's largest Shifa hospital was overcrowded with people who had fled their houses.
"We are living the worst nightmare of our lives. Even here in the hospital we are not safe. An air strike hit in the area outside the hospital around dawn," said a 35-year-old woman who declined to give her name to Reuters.
Taking the road to southern Gaza, which is considered safer, has become more difficult as several people who had made the journey say Israel continues to bomb around it.
Ashraf Al-Qidra, spokesman of the Gaza Health Ministry, said 70 per cent of the people in Gaza City and the north of the strip are deprived of health services after the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA evacuated its headquarters and suspended its services.
Reuters