Israel bombarded Gaza with air strikes early on Monday and its aircraft struck southern Lebanon overnight, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his top generals and his war cabinet to assess the escalating conflict.
Lt Col Jonathan Conricus told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that "the war will end" if Hamas surrenders and releases their hostages.
If Hamas refuses, Conricus said, "we will probably have to go in and get it done".
Israel's attacks concentrated on the Gaza Strip's centre and north, Palestinian media reported. A strike on a house near the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza, killed several Palestinians and wounded others, according to media reports.
Health authorities in Gaza said at least 4600 people were killed in Israel's two-week bombardment that began after a Hamas 7 October rampage on southern Israeli communities in which 1400 people were killed and 212 were taken into Gaza as hostages.
Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian discussed in a call late on Sunday the means of stopping Israel's "brutal crimes" in Gaza, Hamas said in a statement.
Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around Gaza for a planned ground invasion aiming to annihilate Hamas.
Fears that the Israel-Hamas war could mushroom into a wider Middle East conflict rose over the weekend with Washington warning of a significant risk to US interests in the region and announcing a new deployment of advanced air defenses.
- Reuters/BBC
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