Israeli forces advanced deeper into Gaza on Monday after a night of devastating airstrikes and another communications blackout, leaving the battered enclave struggling to assess the damage as a U.S.-backed humanitarian pause remained out of reach.
The airstrikes and ground attacks focused on the northern half of the Strip, cut off by the Israeli military over the weekend in its effort to destroy the Hamas militant movement that is deeply embedded across the territory. A month since the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, the death toll in the Palestinian enclave surpassed 10,000, including more than 4,100 children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.