Hamas fires at Tel Aviv in first riposte to deadly Israel assault

Israel said it had closed off the territory's main north-south route as troops expanded the ground operations they resumed on Wednesday.

Gaza's civil defence agency said 504 people had been killed so far in the Israeli assault this week, including more than 190 children.

The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said it fired rockets at Tel Aviv in response to Israel's "massacres" of Gaza civilians.

The Israeli army said it intercepted one projectile fired from Gaza and that two others struck an uninhabited area.

After weeks of stalemate, Israel resumed its air campaign early Tuesday with a wave of deadly strikes that drew widespread condemnation.

The offensive shattered a relative calm that had pervaded in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory since a ceasefire took hold on January 19.

US President Donald Trump "fully supports" Israel's deadly resumption of air and ground operations in Gaza, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday when asked if he was trying to get a Gaza ceasefire back on track.

At the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, grieving families knelt by the bodies of their loved ones enveloped in blood-stained white shrouds.

"We want a ceasefire! We want a ceasefire!" one of them, Mohammed Hussein, told AFPTV, appealing for the international community to stop the killing.

"We are defenceless Palestinian people," he added.

On Thursday, the Israeli army banned traffic on the territory's main north-south artery.

- Palestinians flee south -

Palestinians were seen fleeing south along Salaheddin Road near the Nusseirat refugee camp atop donkey-drawn carts piled high with belongings.

Army spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X that Israeli troops "have begun a targeted ground operation in the central and southern Gaza Strip in order to expand the security zone between the northern and southern parts".

Movement along Salaheddin Road between the north and south of the Gaza Strip is prohibited "for your safety", he said, adding travel south along the coast was possible but without clarifying if movement north was banned.

The army warned people to evacuate Bani Suheila before a strike on militants "firing rockets from populated areas".

Government spokesman David Mencer said Israel controlled central and southern Gaza and was "expanding the security zone" and creating a buffer between the north and south.

An official from Gaza's interior ministry said the Israeli army had closed what it calls Netzarim Junction, on Salaheddin Road just south of Gaza City, on Wednesday evening.

The official said Israeli tanks had deployed at the junction, where the road artery crosses Israel's main supply route, "following the withdrawal of American special security forces yesterday (Wednesday) morning".

He was referring to American private security contractors deployed in February after the pullback of Israeli forces under the terms of the January ceasefire.

The first stage of the ceasefire expired early this month amid deadlock.

Israel rejected negotiations for a second stage, demanding the return of all remaining hostages under an extended first stage, which Hamas dismissed as an attempt to renegotiate the original deal.

The army said later it had killed Rashid Jahjouh, the head of Hamas's internal security agency, in an air strike on Gaza.

- 'Inhumane ordeals' -

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Thursday deplored "an endless unleashing of the most inhumane ordeals" on the people of Gaza since Israel resumed its military offensive.

"Israeli Forces bombardment continues from air & sea for the third day," Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

"People in Gaza are again & again going through their worst nightmare."

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel's latest strikes on Gaza a "catastrophic crime" and said the United States "shares responsiblity".

The war began with Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.

The overall death toll in Gaza since the start of the war stands at 49,617, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

A worker for the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) was killed on Wednesday, in what the Gaza health ministry said was an Israeli strike on the agency's headquarters in Deir el-Balah.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called for a "transparent investigation" into the strike on the UN compound in which a UK citizen was among five wounded.