A senior Israeli army officer said Friday that he had found the body of a decapitated baby in one of the kibbutz communities attacked by Hamas on October 7.

Colonel Golan Vach, head of the military search and rescue service, told AFP he saw the body of a mother protecting a baby while searching debris at the Beeri kibbutz three days after the attacks.

"When I pulled it over I saw a decapitated baby. I took it up with my hands and I carried it, and I put it in the body bag. I personally did it," he said while on a media tour of another kibbutz organised by the military.

The Israeli military said Friday it was expanding its ground operations in Gaza as it unleashed one of the fiercest bombardments in three weeks of war with the territory's Hamas rulers.

Huge orange flashes lit up the night sky over Gaza City as air strike after air strike hit the shattered territory, where internet access and the phone network were cut.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the army was "extending" its ground operations after two straight nights of tank incursions.

The UN General Assembly on Friday called by a large majority for an "immediate humanitarian truce" in Gaza, on the 21st day of the Israel-Hamas conflict as the Israeli army announced it was extending its ground operation into the shattered territory.

The non-binding resolution, criticized by Israel and the United States for failing to mention Hamas, received 120 votes in favor, 14 against and 45 abstentions from UN members.

Israel angrily dismissed the measure, and said the country would use "every means at our disposal" in confronting Hamas.

Influential religious leader Moqtada Sadr called on the Iraqi government Friday to close the American embassy in Baghdad because of Washington's "unconditional support" for Israel in its war with Hamas.

"If the government and parliament do not respond, we will take a different position that we will announce later," the Shiite cleric, who often criticises the government, warned on X, formerly Twitter.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has criticised the "Zionist occupation" since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza, calling it a "genocide" of the Palestinian people.

Iran's foreign minister warned Friday that Lebanese and Palestinian militants had their "finger on the trigger" in anticipation of an Israeli ground offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Iran's clerical state backs Hamas, whose bloody assault inside Israel on October 7 triggered major retaliation, and has a close relationship with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that frequently fires into Israel.

French President Emmanuel Macron called Friday for a "humanitarian truce" in the Hamas-Israel conflict to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip, which is under heavy bombardment, and to expedite the release of hostages.

His term, made after an EU summit in Brussels, went beyond what he and other leaders collectively had called for in a final statement, which was "humanitarian corridors and pauses".

That expression was the result of hours of painstaking debate over language that reflected divisions in the European Union over the course the Israel-Hamas conflict is going.

Battles were raging in Gaza early on Saturday, as Israel expanded its ground operations and cut communications to the Palestinian territory, three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country's history.

The United Nations warned of a looming "unprecedented avalanche of human suffering" inside the Gaza Strip, following weeks of relentless bombing by Israel, while the General Assembly pushed for an "immediate humanitarian truce".

President Joe Biden sent a message to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warning against strikes on US troops amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, the White House said on Thursday.

"There was a direct message relayed. That's as far as I'm going to go," US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, declining to say how it was delivered.

Later Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said US forces conducted precision strikes on two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It's just before sunrise on Saturday October 7, and hundreds of Hamas militants are creeping towards Gaza's border with Israel. Within minutes they will pour across, opening the gates of hell.

On that morning nearly three weeks ago, neither the Israeli soldiers monitoring Gaza's high-tech border fence nor the civilians living in nearby towns and kibbutzim had any idea that Hamas was about to launch the bloodiest attack in Israel's 75-year history.

Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, the Islamist group which carried out brutal attacks on Israel on October 7, called Thursday for access for the Red Cross to treat their relatives.

"We want to see where the Red Cross is. We know the Red Cross is in Gaza, so we want the world to tell the Red Cross to go and see what is going on with our families," said Merav Mor Raviv, whose uncle and aunt are detained in Gaza by Hamas along with their daughter and grandson.