UNDEFINED – Israel struck targets in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in its war against Hamas sparked by the Oct. 7 attacks, as international concern grew over rising civilian deaths on the third day of fighting after a ceasefire ended.

More than 15,500 people have been killed in more than eight weeks of fighting and heavy bombing in the besieged Palestinian territories, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Israeli air and artillery strikes hit Gaza’s northern border with Israel, sending thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky.

The Israeli army reported 17 volleys of rockets from Gaza into Israel on Sunday, adding that most were intercepted and only minor material damage was caused.

Israel said two of its soldiers died in the fighting, the first since the week-long ceasefire expired on Friday.

Hospitals in southern Gaza were overflowing with the dead and wounded, some screaming in pain.

“I am at a loss to describe the horrors that are happening to the children here,” James Elder, a spokesman for the United Nations children’s fund UNICEF, said in a video from Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.

“This is currently the worst bombing of the war in southern Gaza. I see massive child sacrifices,” he said in remarks on the social media platform X.

Nine-year-old Huda, who was injured in the head, arrived at Deir al-Balah hospital with an International Committee of the Red Cross convoy bringing injured people from the northern Gaza Strip.

“She doesn’t answer me anymore,” said her father, Abdelkarim Abu Warda, sobbing.

“NOT A SAFE PLACE”

The war broke out when Hamas militants entered Israel across the militarized Gaza Strip border on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

Promising to destroy Hamas, Israel responded with an air and ground attack that, according to Gaza authorities, killed mostly women and children.

The seven-day lull in fighting brokered by Qatar with support from Egypt and the United States resulted in the release of 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

More than two dozen other prisoners were released from Gaza outside the ceasefire agreement.

The Israeli military said it had carried out around 10,000 airstrikes since the start of the war.

The army also said it had located more than 800 shafts to Hamas tunnels and “destroyed” about 500 of them. Many of these were near or inside civilian buildings such as schools and mosques.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed concern that hundreds of thousands of people in the Gaza Strip were being detained “in ever smaller areas” in the south of the territory.

“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he said.

The Israeli military said a drone strike “eliminated” five Hamas militants.

Warplanes and helicopters also attacked “tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons depots,” while naval forces attacked Hamas ships and weapons, it said.

There was also fighting on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

The Israeli army said it launched artillery strikes in response to cross-border fire and that its warplanes hit a number of targets linked to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said it had launched several attacks on Israeli positions, including a rocket attack on a military vehicle.

“Too many” innocent people killed

Israel’s ally the United States, which gives it billions of dollars in military aid annually, has stepped up its calls to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip.

“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters at the U.N. climate talks in Dubai.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said the blame for the deaths lay with Hamas and those killed “would still be alive” if the group had not carried out the Oct. 7 attacks.

In a new estimate, OCHA said around 1.8 million people in Gaza, about 75 percent of the population, have been displaced, many in overcrowded and unsanitary shelters.

People in the Gaza Strip are lacking food, water and other essential supplies, and the aid reaching them is “a drop in the ocean of need,” Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, said. UNRWA.

Pope Francis deplored “so much suffering in Gaza” and called on those involved to reach a new ceasefire agreement.

“Return them safely.”

On Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israeli negotiators would be withdrawn from Qatar “following the impasse in negotiations” to renew the ceasefire.

As fighting continues, Hamas has ruled out further releases of hostages until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

“The Price to Pay for the Release of Zionist.” [Israeli] “The release of all our prisoners will be the release of all our prisoners – after a ceasefire,” Saleh al-Aruri, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, said on Saturday, referring to thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

According to the Israeli army, 137 hostages are still being held in Gaza.

“We will not endanger the abductees and will do everything we can to bring them back safely,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari.

Netanyahu said the war would continue “until we achieve all of its objectives,” including freeing the hostages, and that soldiers had prepared “for total victory against Hamas” during the ceasefire.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said it would conduct surveillance flights over Israel and Gaza “in support of ongoing hostage rescue activities.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday drew on his experience fighting the Islamic State terror group and called on Israel to protect non-combatants.

“The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians,” he said at a forum in California.

Most Gazans are stuck, but an Egyptian border crossing reopened after being closed on Friday to allow 880 foreign and dual nationals and 13 injured people to cross the border on Saturday, the United Nations said.