Is­raeli war­planes struck two refugee camps in the Gaza Strip ear­ly Sun­day, killing at least 53 peo­ple and wound­ing dozens, health of­fi­cials said. The strikes came as Is­rael said it would press on with its of­fen­sive to crush the ter­ri­to­ry’s Hamas rulers, de­spite U.S. ap­peals for a pause to get aid to des­per­ate civil­ians.

Is­rael has re­ject­ed the idea of halt­ing its of­fen­sive, even for brief hu­man­i­tar­i­an paus­es pro­posed by U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken dur­ing his cur­rent tour of the re­gion. Gaza’s Health Min­istry said more than 9,700 Pales­tini­ans have been killed in the ter­ri­to­ry in near­ly a month of war, a num­ber that is like­ly to rise as Is­raeli troops ad­vance in­to dense, ur­ban neigh­bor­hoods.

Airstrikes hit the Mag­hazi refugee camp in cen­tral Gaza overnight, killing at least 40 peo­ple and wound­ing 34 oth­ers, the Health Min­istry said.

An As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porter at a near­by hos­pi­tal saw eight dead chil­dren, in­clud­ing a ba­by, who were brought in af­ter the strike. A sur­viv­ing child was led down the cor­ri­dor, her clothes caked in dust, an ex­pres­sion of shock on her face.

Arafat Abu Masha­ia, who lives in the camp, said the Is­raeli airstrike flat­tened sev­er­al mul­ti-sto­ry homes where peo­ple forced out of oth­er parts of Gaza were shel­ter­ing.

“It was a true mas­sacre,” he said while stand­ing on the wreck­age. “All here are peace­ful peo­ple. I chal­lenge any­one who says there were re­sis­tance (fight­ers) here.”

There was no im­me­di­ate com­ment from the Is­raeli mil­i­tary. The camp, a built-up res­i­den­tial area, is lo­cat­ed in the evac­u­a­tion zone where Is­rael’s mil­i­tary had urged Pales­tin­ian civil­ians to seek refuge as it fo­cus­es its mil­i­tary of­fen­sive on the north.

An­oth­er airstrike hit a house near a school at the Bu­re­ji refugee camp in cen­tral Gaza on Sun­day, and staff at Al-Aqsa Hos­pi­tal told the AP at least 13 peo­ple were killed. The camp is home to an es­ti­mat­ed 46,000 peo­ple and was struck on Thurs­day as well.

De­spite ap­peals and over­seas demon­stra­tions, Is­rael has con­tin­ued its bom­bard­ment across Gaza, say­ing it is tar­get­ing Hamas and ac­cus­ing it of us­ing civil­ians as hu­man shields. Crit­ics say Is­rael’s strikes are of­ten dis­pro­por­tion­ate, con­sid­er­ing the large num­ber of civil­ians killed.

Blinken met with Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ab­bas in the oc­cu­pied West Bank on Sun­day, a day af­ter talks with Arab for­eign min­is­ters in neigh­bor­ing Jor­dan.

Ab­bas, who has had no au­thor­i­ty in Gaza since Hamas took over in 2007, said the Pales­tin­ian Au­thor­i­ty would on­ly as­sume con­trol of Gaza as part of a “com­pre­hen­sive po­lit­i­cal so­lu­tion” es­tab­lish­ing an in­de­pen­dent state that would al­so take in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Is­rael seized in the 1967 war.

Pales­tin­ian fire­fight­ers ex­tin­guish a fire caused by an Is­raeli airstrike in Gaza City, Sat­ur­day, Nov. 4, 2023. (AP Pho­to/Abed Khaled)

His re­marks seemed to fur­ther nar­row the al­ready slim op­tions for who would gov­ern Gaza if Is­rael suc­ceeds in top­pling Hamas. The last peace talks with Is­rael broke down more than a decade ago, and Is­rael’s gov­ern­ment is dom­i­nat­ed by op­po­nents of Pales­tin­ian state­hood.

Ear­li­er in his tour, Blinken met with Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, who on Sun­day re­it­er­at­ed while vis­it­ing an air force base that “there will be no cease­fire with­out the re­turn of our ab­ductees.” He added: “We will just con­tin­ue un­til we beat them, we have no al­ter­na­tive.”

Arab lead­ers have called for an im­me­di­ate cease-fire. But Blinken said that “would sim­ply leave Hamas in place, able to re­group and re­peat what it did on Oct. 7,” when the group launched a wide-rang­ing at­tack from Gaza in­to south­ern Is­rael, trig­ger­ing the war.

Blinken said hu­man­i­tar­i­an paus­es could be crit­i­cal in pro­tect­ing civil­ians, get­ting aid in and get­ting for­eign na­tion­als out, “while still en­abling Is­rael to achieve its ob­jec­tive, the de­feat of Hamas.”

Swaths of res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hoods in north­ern Gaza have been lev­eled in airstrikes. The U.N. of­fice for hu­man­i­tar­i­an af­fairs says more than half the re­main­ing res­i­dents, es­ti­mat­ed at around 300,000, are shel­ter­ing in U.N.-run fa­cil­i­ties. Dead­ly Is­raeli strikes have re­peat­ed­ly hit and dam­aged those shel­ters.

Is­raeli planes once again dropped leaflets urg­ing peo­ple to head south dur­ing a four-hour win­dow on Sun­day. Crowds of peo­ple could be seen walk­ing down Gaza’s main north-south high­way car­ry­ing bag­gage, even pets, or push­ing wheel­chairs. Oth­ers led don­key carts.

One man said they had to walk 500 me­ters (yards) with their hands raised while pass­ing Is­raeli troops. An­oth­er de­scribed see­ing bod­ies in dam­aged cars along the road. “The chil­dren saw tanks for the first time. Oh world, have mer­cy on us,” said one Pales­tin­ian who de­clined to give his name.

An­oth­er Is­raeli airstrike overnight struck a wa­ter well in Tal al-Zatar in north­ern Gaza, cut­ting off wa­ter for tens of thou­sands of peo­ple, the Hamas-run mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty in the town of Beit Lahia said in a state­ment.

The U.N. said about 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple in Gaza, or 70% of the pop­u­la­tion, have fled their homes. Food, wa­ter and the fu­el need­ed for gen­er­a­tors that pow­er hos­pi­tals and oth­er fa­cil­i­ties is run­ning out.

The war has stoked ten­sions across the re­gion, with Is­rael and Lebanon’s Hezbol­lah mil­i­tant group re­peat­ed­ly trad­ing fire along the bor­der.

In the oc­cu­pied West Bank, at least two Pales­tini­ans were shot dead dur­ing an Is­raeli ar­rest raid in Abu Dis, just out­side of Jerusalem, ac­cord­ing to the Pales­tin­ian Health Min­istry. The mil­i­tary said a mil­i­tant who had set up an armed cell and fired at Is­raeli forces was killed dur­ing the raid.

At least 150 Pales­tini­ans have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war, main­ly dur­ing vi­o­lent protests and gun bat­tles dur­ing ar­rest raids.

Thou­sands of Is­raelis protest­ed out­side Ne­tanyahu’s of­fi­cial res­i­dence in Jerusalem on Sat­ur­day, urg­ing him to re­sign and call­ing for the re­turn of rough­ly 240 hostages held by Hamas. Some fam­i­lies are trav­el­ing abroad to try to make sure the hostages aren’t for­got­ten.

Ne­tanyahu has re­fused to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the Oct. 7 at­tack in south­ern Is­rael that killed more than 1,400 peo­ple. On­go­ing Pales­tin­ian rock­et fire has forced tens of thou­sands of peo­ple in Is­rael to leave their homes.

In an­oth­er re­flec­tion of wide­spread anger in Is­rael, a ju­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Ami­hai Eliyahu, sug­gest­ed in a ra­dio in­ter­view Sun­day that Is­rael could drop an atom­ic bomb on Gaza. He lat­er walked back the re­marks, say­ing they were “metaphor­i­cal.” Ne­tanyahu is­sued a state­ment say­ing the min­is­ter’s com­ments were “not based in re­al­i­ty.”

Ne­tanyahu sus­pend­ed Eliyahu from cab­i­net meet­ings, a move that has no prac­ti­cal ef­fect.

Among the Pales­tini­ans killed in Gaza are more than 4,800 chil­dren, the Gaza Health Min­istry said, with­out pro­vid­ing a break­down of civil­ians and fight­ers.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary said 29 of its sol­diers have died dur­ing the ground op­er­a­tion.

Jobain re­port­ed from Khan You­nis, Gaza Strip, and Chehayeb from Beirut. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Matthew Lee in Ra­mal­lah, West Bank; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Ju­lia Frankel in Jerusalem and Cara An­na in New York con­tributed to this re­port.

DEIR AL-BAL­AH, Gaza Strip (AP)