Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in the Gaza Strip, while airstrikes in a new offensive killed at least 103 people, hospitals and medics said, and forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close.

The Hamas-run health ministry says airstrikes have forced the closure of the main hospital serving people in northern Gaza.

Israeli military strikes killed at least 60 people in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as the United States and Arab mediators pushed for a ceasefire.

Multiple airstrikes hit Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis overnight into Thursday, killing more than 50 people in a second consecutive night of heavy bombing, while another airstrike in the north of the Palestinian territory left more than a dozen people dead,

Hospitals and health officials say Israeli airstrikes have pounded northern and southern Gaza and killed at least 70 people. The dead include almost two dozen children.

No humanitarian assistance has been delivered to Gaza since 2 March, and a global hunger monitor has warned that half a million people face starvation

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 103 people overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said, and prompted the main hospital in northern Gaza to close as Israel intensifies its war in the territory that,