Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas “will not happen”, as ground forces fought inside Gaza and air strikes pounded the besieged Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu spoke to foreign press after telling his war cabinet Israeli forces were making “systematic progress” against Hamas in response to the October 7 attacks – the deadliest in the country’s history. Israel’s intensifying military operations have sharply heightened fears for the 2.4 million inhabitants of Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says more than 8,300 have been killed.

Netanyahu told the press briefing a ceasefire would amount to surrendering to Hamas, whose gunmen killed 1,400 people and took more than 230 hostages, according to the latest Israeli figures.

Palestinians in northern Gaza reported fierce air and artillery strikes early on Monday as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the enclave with a ground assault that prompted more international calls for civilians to be protected.

Israel’s military said it had struck over 600 militant targets over the past few days as it continued to expand ground operations in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water as the conflict enters its fourth week.

Here are the latest updates

• According to the UN, all 10 hospitals in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders – despite sheltering thousands of patients and about 117,000 of the displaced.
• More children have been killed in Gaza in the last three weeks than the total killed in conflicts around the world in every year since 2019, the non-governmental group Save the Children said.
• Five apartment buildings near the Jerusalem Hospital were destroyed. About 12,000 displaced people sheltering near the hospital.
• Heavy fighting is ongoing to the east of the Meghazi refugee camp.
• More than 30 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, the largest convoy to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory since deliveries began trickling in again over a week ago, the UN said.
• The United Nations humanitarian organisation OCHA said 33 trucks carrying water, food, and medical supplies had gone into Gaza on Sunday, through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
• “This is the largest delivery of humanitarian aid since 21 October, when limited deliveries resumed,” OCHA said in an update on the situation in Gaza sent early Monday.
• Fears of a possible strike on Gaza’s Al-Quds Hospital grow after Israel ordered its “immediate” evacuation and as bombardment continues; The World Health Organization says it is “deeply concerned”. -Detail on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) investigation into the killing of Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah, 37, in southern Lebanon on October 13.
• “It is unlikely that the journalists were mistaken for combatants,” RSF found. “They had been in the open for more than an hour, on the top of a hill” and “were wearing helmets and bullet-proof waistcoats marked ‘press’.”
• Six other journalists, including Al Jazeera cameraperson Elie Brakhia and reporter Carmen Joukhadar, were wounded when two rounds of munitions hit the village of Alma al-Shaab in quick succession.