Israeli tanks have pushed deeper into eastern Rafah, reaching some residential districts, stepping up an offensive in the southern border city where more than a million people had been sheltering after being displaced in seven months of war.
Israel's international allies and aid groups have repeatedly urged against a ground incursion into refugee-packed Rafah, warning of a potential humanitarian catastrophe.
Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said Israel's operations in Rafah have set back efforts at trying to reach a ceasefire in talks that are being mediated by Qatar and Egypt, although it would continue to negotiate.
Israel has vowed to press on into Rafah even without the support of allies, saying its operation is necessary to root out four remaining Hamas battalions holed up in the city.
Hamas's armed wing said it had destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with an Al-Yassin 105 missile in the eastern Al-Salam neighbourhood, killing some crew members and wounding others.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
Israel issued evacuation orders for people to move from parts of eastern Rafah a week ago, with a second round of orders extending to further zones on Saturday.
They are moving to empty tracts of land, including Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip bordering the coast that Israel has designated as a humanitarian area. Aid agencies have warned the zone lacks sanitary and other facilities to host an influx of displaced people.
UNRWA, the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, estimates some 450,000 people have fled Rafah since 6 May.
"People face constant exhaustion, hunger and fear. Nowhere is safe," the agency posted on X.
Fighting across the strip has intensified in recent days, including in the north, with the Israeli military heading back into areas where it had claimed to have dismantled Hamas months ago. Israel says the operations are to prevent Hamas, which controls Gaza, from rebuilding it military capacities.
The Palestinian death toll in the war has now surpassed 35,000, according to Gaza health officials, whose figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. It said that 82 people were killed in the past 24 hours, the highest death toll in a single day in many weeks.
A foreign UN security staff member was killed in Rafah yesterday when a UN-marked vehicle was struck. A spokesperson said it was the first international UN fatality of the war and brought the total death toll of UN personnel to around 190.
Another United Nations Department of Safety and Security (DSS) staff member was wounded in the attack, a spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said, adding that the two had been travelling to the European Hospital in Rafah when their vehicle was hit.
Israel launched its operation in Gaza following the attack on 7 October by Hamas on Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said that at least 35,173 people have been killed since 7 October, adding that 79,061 people have been wounded.
Gun battles between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen were the fiercest in months, according to residents, both in the north and south of the densely populated territory of 2.3 million people.
In the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in the north, bulldozers demolished clusters of houses to make a new road for tanks to roll through into the eastern suburb.
In northern Gaza's Jabalia, a sprawling refugee camp built for displaced Palestinians 75 years ago, residents said Israeli forces were trying to reach as deep as the camp's local market under heavy tank shelling.
Taoiseach urges Israel to cease Rafah operation
Taoiseach Simon Harris has urged Israel "to cease its operations in Rafah immediately".
He told the Dáil that Palestinians have no-where to flee.
"There's no-where safe for these people to go," he said.
The invasion will "inevitably lead" to "devastating consequences," Mr Harris said, citing warnings from the UN.
"We shouldn't allow [Benjamin] Netanyahu become the embodiment of the Israeli people," he said, as there are many Isaraelis who want to live in peace alongside Palestinians.
US doesn't believe 'genocide' occurring in Gaza: White House
The United States does not believe that genocide is occurring in Gaza but Israel must do more to protect Palestinian civilians, President Joe Biden's top national security official has said.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also insisted that the responsibility for peace lay with Hamas.
"We believe Israel can and must do more to ensure the protection and wellbeing of innocent civilians. We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide," Mr Sullivan told a briefing.
The US was "using the internationally accepted term for genocide, which includes a focus on intent" to reach this assessment, he added.
Mr Biden wanted to see Hamas defeated but realised that Palestinian civilians were in "hell", Mr Sullivan said.
Mr Sullivan said he was coming to the White House podium to "take a step back" and set out the Biden administration's position on the conflict, amid criticism from both ends of the US political spectrum.
Mr Biden has come under fire from Republicans for halting some weapons shipments to press his demands that Israel hold off a Rafah offensive, while there have been protests at US universities against his support for Israel.
The US president believed any Rafah operation "has got to be connected to a strategic endgame that also answered the question, 'what comes next?'" Mr Sullivan added.
This would avoid Israel "getting mired in a counterinsurgency campaign that never ends, and ultimately saps Israel's strength and vitality."
World Court to hold hearings over Israel's Rafah attacks
The UN's International Court of Justice will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel's attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said Monday.
Meanwhile, Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said today that Turkey decided to submit its declaration of official intervention in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Earlier this month Mr Fidan announced the decision to join the case launched by South Africa as Ankara stepped up measures against Israel over its assault on Gaza.
"We condemned civilians being killed on October 7," he told a press conference with his Austrian counterpart.
"But Israel systematically killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and rendering a whole residential area uninhabitable is a crime against humanity, attempted genocide, and the manifestation of genocide," he added.
A foreign ministry official said Turkey had not yet submitted the formal application to the ICJ.
