Story highlights:

• WHO urges Israel to allow fuel into Gaza Strip
• WHO calls for daily aid flow into Gaza, including fuel
• Egypt’s Sisi, Jordan king condemn ‘collective punishment’ in Gaza
• Gaza war death toll rises to 3,785: health ministry

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border on Thursday that they would soon see the Palestinian enclave “from inside”, suggesting an expected ground invasion with the aim of annihilating Hamas could be nearing.

Israel pounded Gaza with more air strikes on Thursday over the Oct 7 rampage by Hamas gunmen who killed 1,400 Israelis.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak followed US President Joe Biden with a visit to demonstrate Western support for the war against Hamas militants.

Israel has put the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people under siege and bombarded the enclave in strikes that have killed thousands and made more than a million homeless.

In Gaza’s north, footage obtained by Reuters from the Jabaliya refugee camp showed residents digging with their bare hands inside a damaged building to free a small boy and girl trapped under masonry. The body of a man was also pulled out.

Meanwhile, Egypt took steps to prepare to let in aid through its border crossing with Gaza with first deliveries expected on Friday. The crossing has been out of operation since the first days of the conflict and Israeli bombardments on the Palestinian side of the border.

“You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come,” Gallant told soldiers. Troops were not expected to enter while foreign leaders were visiting.

Gallant also said the battle will be long and hard.

Shortly after Gallant’s statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a video of himself with troops near the border promising victory.

16 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza war: union

Sixteen Palestinian journalists have been killed in the war in Gaza since Israel began bombarding the coastal enclave, the Palestinian journalists’ union said Thursday.

Dozens of other journalists have been wounded in the conflict since it erupted on October 7 after Hamas militants carried out a deadly attack on Israel that triggered a blistering Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian territory.

UN chief calls for ‘sustained’ humanitarian access to Gaza

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged “rapid, unimpeded humanitarian access” to the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday as Israel kept up its retaliation for shock Hamas attacks.

“We need food, water, medicine and fuel now. We need it at scale and we need it to be sustained, it is not one small operation that is required,” Guterres said in Cairo, as calls mounted for aid to reach the territory’s 2.4 million people.

“In plain terms, that means humanitarians need to be able to get aid in and they need to be able to distribute it safely.”

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza – the only route in or out not controlled by Israel – was bombed four times by Israeli aircraft last week.

Gaza war death toll rises to 3,785: health ministry

At least 3,785 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel began bombarding the coastal enclave, the health ministry in Palestine said on Thursday.

Some 1,524 children and 1,000 women are among those killed in the relentless Israeli air strikes, the ministry said, adding another 12,493 people have been injured.

WHO calls for daily aid flow into Gaza, including fuel

The World Health Organization called Thursday for a daily flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip beyond the first convoy readying near the border – including fuel to keep hospitals running.

Egypt’s state-linked television Al Qahera News reported that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the war-torn Palestinian enclave would open Friday, and that Israel had agreed to allow an initial 20 trucks carrying relief goods to pass through.

“We welcome Israel’s announcement yesterday that it will not block the entry of water, food and medicines into Gaza from Egypt,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“Fuel is also needed for hospital generators, ambulances and desalination plants – and we urge Israel to add fuel to the life-saving supplies allowed to enter Gaza,” he told journalists.

Egypt’s Sisi, Jordan king condemn ‘collective punishment’ in Gaza

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II condemned the “collective punishment” of Palestinians in Gaza as they met in Cairo for talks on the Israel-Hamas war.

Ahead of the meeting, the Jordanian royal court said Sisi and King Abdullah would “discuss means to stop the Israeli aggression on Gaza”.

In separate statements issued later, the Egyptian presidency and the royal court said the two leaders “affirmed their unified position rejecting the policy of collective punishment in the siege, starvation or displacement” of Palestinians.

Israel has been carrying out air and artillery strikes on Gaza since Hamas gunmen unleashed a massive attack on communities in southern Israel on October 7 that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people, mainly civilians.

The health ministry in Gaza says the Israeli strikes have killed 3,478 people in the besieged Palestinian enclave, also mostly civilians.

A siege imposed by Israel has deprived the territory’s 2.4 million people of food, water, electricity and fuel as the United Nations warns of an increasingly dire humanitarian situation.

Sisi and King Abdullah warned of regional spillover.

“If the war does not stop”, it would threaten “to plunge the entire region into catastrophe”, according to the Jordanian statement.

The pair had been due to hold talks with US President Joe Biden and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Jordan this week, but Jordan cancelled the meeting after a deadly strike on a Gaza hospital.

Their meeting comes on the same day that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected in Cairo.

In a meeting with UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in Cairo on Thursday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed “the priority of delivering humanitarian and emergency aid to the people of Gaza”, according to the foreign ministry.

Sisi also discussed “the situation in Gaza” with US Central Command chief Michael Kurilla, his office said Thursday.

Egypt and Jordan were the first Arab states to normalise relations with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively, and have since been key mediators between Israeli and Palestinian officials.