Israel has a responsibility to protect the lives of innocent people in Gaza, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says, amid a growing outcry at Palestinian civilian deaths.

With the death toll in the Gaza Strip in the thousands and climbing, US President Joe Biden’s administration is under increasing pressure to make clear that its steadfast support of Israel does not translate into a blanket endorsement of all that its ally is doing in the impoverished coastal enclave.

In a round of television interviews on Sunday (US time), Sullivan said Washington was asking hard questions of Israel, including on issues surrounding humanitarian aid, distinguishing between terrorists and innocent civilians and on how Israel is thinking through its military operation.

“What we believe is that every hour, every day of this military operation, the IDF (Israel Defence Forces), the Israeli government should be taking every possible means available to them to distinguish between Hamas terrorists who are legitimate military targets and civilians who are not,” Sullivan said on CNN.

The US had been clear on that and Biden would reiterate the view in a call later on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sullivan said.

Sullivan also said Netanyahu had a responsibility to “rein in” extremist Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“It is totally unacceptable to have extremist settler violence against innocent people in the West Bank,” he said.

The demand was backed by France, whose foreign ministry said on Sunday that settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank needed to stop.

“France calls on the Israeli authorities to take immediate measures to protect the Palestinian population”, the ministry said in a statement.

In the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, medical authorities say 8005 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign to obliterate Iran-backed militants.

The Hamas militants who control Gaza have embedded themselves among the Palestinian population and in civilian infrastructure, making an operation against them extremely difficult, Sullivan noted.

“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,” he said.

Hospital strike threat

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received warnings from Israeli authorities to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital in the Gaza Strip, adding that raids on Sunday were just 50 metres from the facility.

The Red Crescent says some 14,000 people have sought shelter at the hospital from Israeli air strikes.

Israel has accused Hamas of locating command centres and other military infrastructure in Gaza hospitals, something the group denies.

Israel tanks in Gaza

The communications blackout in Gaza has eased but Israel’s military operation continues to grow in intensity, on land and by air.

Israel has signalled its intent to intensify its operation in Gaza, stating its request for civilians to leave the north of the Strip and Gaza City and head south was now “urgent”.

Israel’s self-declared “second phase” of a three-week war against Hamas militants had initially been kept from public view, with forces moving under darkness and a telecommunications blackout cutting off Palestinians.

The phone and internet cuts appeared to be easing on Sunday, according to Gaza residents. This, reports US media, was at the insistence of the US government.

But they had severely hampered rescue operations for casualties of Israeli barrages wreaking destruction, especially on northern Gaza City, site of Hamas’s government and command centres.

As well as the Israeli military’s pictures of tanks, some pictures online appeared to show Israeli soldiers waving an Israeli flag deep inside Gaza.

Reuters could not verify those images.

Hamas said it was firing mortars against Israeli forces in north Gaza and had hit Israeli tanks with missiles, belittling reports of deep advances by its enemy.

IDF fighter jets struck more than 450 Hamas targets, including operational command centres, lookout posts, and anti-tank missile launch posts, in the last 24 hours, the military said.

It said gunmen emerged from a tunnel near Israel’s border and were killed or wounded in a clash with troops.

“We are gradually expanding the ground activity and the scope of our forces in the Gaza Strip,” IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

Israel has tightened its blockade and bombarded Gaza since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border into Israel on October 7, killing at least 1400 people and taking more than 200 hostages.

Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, a task that it described as necessitating protracted ground assaults in, around and under Gaza City, where the militants have an extensive subterranean bunker network.

Western countries have generally backed what they say is Israel’s right to self-defence. But there has been mounting international outcry over the toll from the bombing with large demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians and calls for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to reach Gaza civilians.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan visited the Rafah crossing, where he said blocking relief for innocent civilians could constitute a crime and urged Israel to cooperate.

Pope Francis on Sunday called for a ceasefire and renewed his call for the release of all hostages.

With supplies of food, water and medicines running low and much of Gaza reduced to rubble, thousands of residents broke into warehouses and distribution centres of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), grabbing flour and other basics, the organisation said.

“This is a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza,” the UNRWA said.

It said at least 59 of its staff in Gaza have been killed.

There are fears of regional overspill to the Gaza war, including in Lebanon where the Israeli army and Iranian-backed Hezbollah group have been exchanging fire and one member of the United Nations’ Lebanon peacekeeping force was injured after shells hit the mission’s base.

Israel said there were rocket or mortar launches from Lebanon at its territory, and that it was returning fire. Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone.

However, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told CNN on Sunday, “we don’t want this war to spread out”.

He dismissed claims directly connecting Iran to the attacks, calling them “baseless.”

-AAP