The announcement came exactly three months after the Hamas attack that triggered the war and as a dozen children were among those killed in an attack in the south.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is due to visit Israel, is expected to urge it to wind down its devastating air and ground offensive and shift to more targeted attacks against Hamas leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday again insisted the war would not end until Hamas was eliminated and Gaza was no longer a threat to his country.
He said he also wanted to free the 123 hostages Israel claims are still being held by Hamas.
He told his Cabinet: “I say this to both our enemies and our friends. This is our responsibility and this is the obligation of all of us.”
More than 22,700 Palestinians have been killed and 58,000 wounded since Israel launched its assault on October 7, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.
Yesterday, officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received the bodies of 18 people, including 12 children, who were killed in an Israeli attack. Another air strike hit a house between Khan Younis and Rafah, killing at least seven people.
Palestinian journalists Hamza Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya were killed when an Israeli air strike hit their car while they were driving to an assignment in southern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
And last night Israeli police opened fire on two suspected attackers who rammed their car into a West Bank checkpoint, killing a Palestinian toddler aged three or four in an adjacent vehicle.
Israeli forces were pushing deeper into the central city of Deir al-Balah, where residents were warned to evacuate their homes.
Carolina Lopez, of medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which has workers in the city, said: “The situation became so dangerous that some staff living in the neighbouring areas were not able to leave their houses because of the constant threats of drones and snipers.”
Israel military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said troops would attempt to strengthen defences along the Gaza border.
He claimed Hamas no longer operated in an organised manner in northern Gaza, but stressed that militants “without a framework and without commanders” were present.
He added that sporadic fighting continued and rockets were still being fired into Israel. Hagari said Israeli forces would act differently in the south than they had in the north, where heavy bombardment and ground combat levelled entire neighbourhoods.
Echoing the country’s political leaders, he said the fighting “will continue throughout 2024”.
His comments about changing the way Israeli forces are fighting appeared to be a nod to Mr Blinken, who is on his fourth trip to the Middle East in three months.
Mr Blinken has also called for more aid to reach Gaza and urged Israel’s leaders to come up with a vision for the territory when the fighting ends.
Israeli police opened fire at two suspected attackers who rammed their car into a West Bank checkpoint, fatally shooting a Palestinian toddler in an adjacent vehicle.
Police said the male and female suspects inside the van were shot, but a girl in another vehicle in front of them was shot as well.
The girl, who was reported to be three or four years old, was pronounced dead by Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
The Sunday evening incident came hours after nine people were killed in other unrest in the occupied territory, which has experienced a surge of violence since Israel’s war against Hamas erupted on October 7.
Israeli police said the ramming took place at a checkpoint near the Palestinian village of Biddu, just north-west of Jerusalem.
Security camera footage showed a white van ploughing into two Israeli police officers at the checkpoint. Police then chase after the vehicle, opening fire.
The conditions of the suspected attackers was not immediately known, but the rescue service said a female officer in the paramilitary border police was lightly wounded.
