Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended a cabinet minister who suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was an option.
On an Israeli radio show Sunday, Israel's Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza was "one way" to deal with the Hamas crisis.
Eliyahu will now be suspended from cabinet meetings indefinitely.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck two central Gaza refugee camps, killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens, health officials said.
Airstrikes hit the Maghazi refugee camp overnight, killing at least 40 people and wounding 34 others, the Health Ministry said. The camp is in the zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge.
An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike. A surviving child was led down the corridor, her clothes caked in dust.
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. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance (fighters) here.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Another airstrike hit a house near a school at the Bureji refugee camp in central Gaza. Staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital told the AP at least 13 people were killed. The camp was struck on Thursday as well.
Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush Hamas, despite U.S. appeals for even brief pauses to get aid to desperate civilians.
During talks on Saturday, Netanyahu said there could be no temporary cease-fire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.
Around 33,000 people reportedly live in the refugee camp struck by Israel, which is less than half a mile wide in size. The bombing has devastated people living in the camp.
"I saw a red light. Then we were shaking on the sofa. I saw all my sisters screaming, then I saw my father. When I found myself alive, I looked to see who is still alive," said a resident of the camp. "We turned on the torch, and my siblings were alive, but I did not find father. I finally found him next to me. I moved him, I moved his hands, I moved his face. He did not respond."
The Palestinian death toll has now climbed to nearly 10,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the attack on Oct. 7, Israeli officials said.
At least 40% of the people killed have been children.
Israel's military announced late Sunday that it had encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two.
“Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group ruling the enclave. Israeli media reported that troops are expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours. Strong explosions were seen in northern Gaza after nightfall.
Gaza came under the third total communications outage since the start of the war.
The “collapse in connectivity” across Gaza reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by Palestinian telecom company Paltel made it even more complicated to convey details of the new stage of the military offensive.
“We have lost communication with the vast majority of the UNRWA team members," U.N. Palestinian refugee agency spokesperson Juliette Touma told The Associated Press. The first Gaza outage lasted 36 hours and the second one for a few hours.
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