Israel must protect innocent Gaza residents by distinguishing between Hamas militants and civilians in the Palestinian territory, the White House warned ahead of a call Sunday between President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been urged to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, where health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 8,000 people -- half of them children -- have already died in three weeks of air strikes conducted in retaliation for the deadly Hamas attacks into Israel on October 7.

Etidal al-Masri got up before dawn to reach the bakery in Rafah in the hopes of getting enough bread to feed her relatives who were bombed out of their home.

She waited in line for ages, but by the time it was her turn, the bread had run out.

Masri fled her home in the northern Beit Hanun area to seek shelter at a school run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in this southern Gaza town, but has been finding it hard to get basic supplies.

Within an hour, the Bedouin village of Wadi al-Seeq in the occupied West Bank had been completely emptied, its 200 residents fleeing on foot with their sheep and goats.

On October 12, five days after the start of the war between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, residents say dozens of Israelis turned up at the village and gave them an hour to leave their land, among them settlers, soldiers and police.

aUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Sunday warned the situation in Hamas-ruled Gaza is declining rapidly as he repeated desperate appeals for a ceasefire to end the "nightmare" of bloodshed.

"The situation in Gaza is growing more desperate by the hour. I regret that instead of a critically needed humanitarian pause, supported by the international community, Israel has intensified its military operations," Guterres said on a visit to Nepal's capital Kathmandu.

"The number of civilians who have been killed and injured is totally unacceptable."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday said Israel's ongoing bombardment of Gaza "may force everyone" to act in the latest warning issued by the Islamic republic since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Israel has been pounding the tiny Palestinian territory since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7 and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

The Israeli army said Monday that its forces killed dozens of militants in clashes through the night in Gaza as it presses on with its military response to the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The army said "troops killed dozens of terrorists who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels and attempted to attack the troops", and that a fighter jet had targeted a building "with over 20 Hamas terrorist operatives inside".

Hamas earlier said it was engaged in "heavy fighting" with Israeli troops inside northern Gaza, where besieged residents were again told to flee.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters poured onto the streets of Brooklyn, New York's largest district on Saturday to voice their anger at Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Home to between 1.6 and two million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Muslims, New York has for the past three weeks been rocked by demonstrations, rallies and vigils in support of the Palestinians and Israel.

Left-wing American Jewish activists are also up in arms against Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to stand up to "imperialist" forces as he led Turkish centenary celebrations in the shadow of Israel's escalating war with Hamas militants in Gaza.

Erdogan took centre stage during day-long events that both honoured the republic's secular founder and played up the achievement of his Islamic-rooted party that has run Turkey since 2002.

"Our country is in safe hands, you may rest in peace," Erdogan said after laying a wreath at the mausoleum of military commander and statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The families of more than 220 hostages seized by Hamas demanded answers from the Israeli government on Saturday with many fearing that a military onslaught on the Gaza Strip is putting the captives' lives at risk.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke off from war planning for a hastily arranged meeting with hostage families after they had threatened to start street protests to highlight their desperation.

Thousands of demonstrators protested in Paris on Saturday in a banned march in "support of the Palestinian people" AFP correspondents saw.

A large contingent of police blocked marchers in a central part of the capital.

Among the protesters were elected officials wearing tricolor scarves, including a green MP and a far-left lawmaker.

"(The need for) a ceasefire is urgent, to stop killing women, children and men," said the deputy mayor of the central town of Corbeil-Essonnes, Elsa Toure.