GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories, Oct 31, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Israeli troops 
and Hamas militants engaged Tuesday in "fierce battles" in Gaza, where the 
dire humanitarian crisis spiralled and tearful Palestinian families scoured 
rubble in a desperate search for loved ones.

Footage from the Israeli military showed tanks and armoured bulldozers 
churning up bomb-scarred dirt tracks and troops searching shattered buildings 
for Hamas militants and the 240 hostages still missing.

Israel struck 300 targets during its fourth night of land operations in 
northern Gaza, launched after the bloodiest attack in its history when Hamas 
gunmen killed some 1,400 in a brutal cross-border raid, according to Israeli 
officials.

The army said its forces were "engaged in fierce battles with Hamas 
terrorists deep inside the Gaza Strip," killing dozens of militants.

Warplanes kept up a relentless barrage of strikes on Gaza, where the bombing 
campaign has now killed 8,525, according to the latest count given by the 
Hamas-run health ministry, many of them children.

The ministry later said another 50 people had died in an Israeli strike on 
the Jabalia refugee camp.

"We want to live like any other people in this world, to live quietly," said 
Ahmed al-Kahlout, a Gaza resident living near an Orthodox Cultural Centre 
destroyed in a strike.

"We don't know what to do. The least they can do is give us a truce, give us 
three hours, a temporary truce or a ceasefire," Kahlout told AFP.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed growing 
international calls for a ceasefire, saying it would be "surrender" to the 
Hamas group he has vowed to destroy.

Hamas also released footage of battles within Gaza, including what it said 
was a military vehicle on fire.

None of this footage could be independently verified but AFP images showed 
plumes of smoke rising above Gaza and Israeli helicopters raining down 
rockets on the northern Gaza Strip.

- 'Stop these massacres' -

The humanitarian toll has sparked a global backlash, with aid groups and the 
United Nations warning time is running out for many of the territory's 2.4 
million people denied access to food, water, fuel and medicine.

"Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children. It's a living hell 
for everyone else," said children's aid agency UNICEF, urging an "immediate 
humanitarian ceasefire".

Surgeons are conducting amputations on hospital floors without anaesthetic, 
and children are forced to drink salty water, said Jean-Francois Corty, vice-
president of Medecins Sans Frontieres, which has 20 staff on the ground.

Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals as military headquarters and 
civilians as "human shields", charges the group dismisses as "baseless" 
propaganda.

At a funeral in southern Gaza, tearful mourners cradled the bodies of 
relatives wrapped in white shrouds before burying them with their bare hands.

"We ask the world to show sympathy for the children to stop these massacres," 
Youssef Hijazi, the grandfather of one victim, told AFP.

As even Israel's staunchest allies voiced concern about the humanitarian 
crisis in southern Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA said 
there was not nearly enough aid to meet the "unprecedented" needs.

"When an eight-year-old tells you that she doesn't want to die, it's hard not 
to feel helpless," said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.

Hisham Adwan, Gaza director of the Rafah crossing with Egypt where some aid 
has been allowed in, said 36 trucks had been waiting there since the previous 
day.

"I feel that it's extremely slow and there's disruption to UNRWA's work, and 
we don't know why," he said.

Israel said it is inspecting cargo to make sure weapons are not being 
smuggled in, and monitoring to guarantee Hamas does not seize the supplies.

- 'Great sorrow' -

The incursion scored an early victory Monday: the rescue of Private Ori 
Megidish, an Israeli soldier in Hamas captivity who was reunited with her 
family.

But there was heartbreak for relatives of another missing woman, 23-year-old 
German-Israeli Shani Louk, abducted from a music festival then "tortured and 
paraded around Gaza," according to Israel's foreign ministry.

Her remains were found Monday, with her sister Adi voicing her "great sorrow" 
as she shared news of her death on social media.

Other families have endured an unbearable wait for news of relatives seized 
by Hamas militants and thought to be held in a labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza.

Hadas Kalderon walked through the scorched homes of the Nir Oz kibbutz, near 
Israel's border with Gaza, where gunmen killed her mother and niece and 
kidnapped her 12-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter.

"I don't have any control and knowledge about army actions, I just know my 
children are still there in the middle of a war," said the 56-year-old.

"It's a disaster. It's really hell. There is no word to express this."

Hamas Monday released a video of what it said were three women hostages, 
seated against a tile wall. One urged Israel to agree to a Hamas-demanded 
prisoner swap.

Netanyahu dismissed the clip, the time and place of which could not be 
verified, as "cruel psychological propaganda".

- 'Very primitive' -

Meanwhile, in a sign that the conflict risked spiralling throughout the 
region, Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels fired drones and missiles towards 
Israel and vowed to keep up attacks.

Israel's army also said it had intercepted a missile fired from the Red Sea 
region.

Israel's military has struck targets in Syria and traded cross-border fire 
with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, whose caretaker prime minister Najib 
Mikati told AFP it was his "duty to prevent Lebanon from entering the war."

Anis Abla, head of Lebanon's Civil Defense Centre in Marjayoun, near the 
Israeli border, said they were completely unprepared for war.

"Our equipment is very primitive and there is a shortage of all tools, such 
as fire suits and extinguisher cylinders," he told AFP.