Rescuers lifted a cement block and pulled the lifeless body of a Palestinian from the rubble of a residential building destroyed by Israeli air strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip.

"Why? We did nothing, oh God," screamed a weeping young man as his relative was wrapped in a shroud and carried away on a stretcher as fighting triggered by Hamas's deadly attack on Israel raged for a sixth day.

The Hamas-ruled enclave has been under heavy bombardment since Saturday when the group's fighters crossed into Israel and killed more then 1,200 civilians, soldiers and foreigners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday showed visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken horrific pictures of babies he said were killed by Hamas militants in Israel over the weekend.

The pictures were posted by the prime minister's office on X, formerly Twitter. One picture showed a dead baby in a body bag while the other showed the charred remains of another infant.

Like clockwork, every 30 seconds Israeli artillery goes into action against a barely visible target somewhere in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israel has vowed to "crush" Hamas after gunmen from the Palestinian Islamist group stormed across the border and killed 1,200 people -- the deadliest attack on the country since it was founded 75 years ago.

Six days since the offensive took Israel by surprise, its army has kept pounding the densely populated Gaza Strip with artillery shells and air strikes, as it prepares for a possible ground invasion.

In its bloody assault on Israel, Hamas was aiming to break a stalemate in Gaza, analysts say, but with its neighbour now determined to eradicate the Islamist group, it may have made a fatal mistake.

Responsible for governing the coastal enclave since its violent takeover in 2007, Hamas had come under pressure from the Palestinian public for the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, said George Giacaman, a professor at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank.

Low-cost carrier flydubai announced flights to Kabul on Thursday, becoming the first international airline to resume services since US forces' chaotic withdrawal in 2021.

Twice-daily flights will begin on November 15, the Dubai-based airline said. Taliban authorities swiftly returned to power after the hasty US evacuation.

"flydubai... announced today the resumption of flights to Kabul International Airport," said a statement on the carrier's website.

A stationary cable car, an abandoned tourist van, empty roads -- the scene around Rosh Hanikra, an Israeli seaside kibbutz bordering Lebanon, looked like still life if not for the goats grazing languidly under the hot wind.

The kibbutz has over the years seen its share of rockets launched by Hezbollah militants from Lebanon, but this time, it has become a ghost town over fears that it could be the target of an Islamist incursion like the deadly attack by Hamas fighters in southern Israel.

Osher and Michael Waknin wanted to celebrate friendship, love and freedom. The twins in their 30s "organised parties all over Israel... They were always happy kids," their sister said.

Their last party, however, became the scene of horrific tragedy when it was targeted by the Hamas gunmen who launched the worst attack on Israel in its 75-year history.

Yet before the incomprehension that became terror under the rattle of automatic weapons, the festival had opened as a huge success.

It's early morning when 30-year-old Syrian Adem Ahmed walks across a railway bridge that starts in Poland and ends in Germany.

Moments later, he and 21 fellow Syrians are detained by German federal police, after the government stepped up border checks to combat a surge in illegal migrant crossings.

"The smuggler who was supposed to drop them off in a lorry on German soil probably fled when he saw the police and left them on their own," said federal police spokesman Jens Schobranski.

Israeli strikes knocked Syria's two main airports out of service on Thursday, Syrian state media said, in the first such attack since a weekend Hamas onslaught on Israel triggered fierce fighting.

Israeli strikes have repeatedly caused the grounding of flights at the airports in the capital Damascus and northern city Aleppo, both of which are controlled by the government of war-torn Syria.

The "simultaneous" strikes "damaged landing strips in the two airports, putting them out of service", state media said, citing an unidentified military source.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed on a visit Thursday that the United States will "always" back Israel but said the Palestinians also have "legitimate aspirations" not represented by militant group Hamas.

"You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself," Blinken said during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as war raged between Israel and Hamas.

"But as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to. We will always be there by your side."