Israel-Hamas war: over 5,000 killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, says Hamas

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry said Monday that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign more than two weeks ago.

Alarm has surged about the spiralling humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack that, Israeli officials say, killed more than 1,400 people who were gunned down, stabbed or burnt by the Islamist militants. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages.

On a day when Israel's army reported more than 300 new strikes within 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said the death toll had surged above 5,000, more than 2,000 of them children, in figures AFP has not been able to independently verify.

Thousands of buildings have been destroyed and more than one million people displaced in the territory that has been under siege and largely deprived of water, food and other basic supplies.

About a dozen trucks carrying desperately needed aid -- the third convoy in three days -- arrived inside Gaza from Egypt on Monday through Rafah, Gaza's only crossing not controlled by Israel.

The United States, which has brokered the entry of the aid convoys, has vowed a "continued flow" of relief goods into Gaza, even as UN aid agencies have said far more is needed.