ISRAELI forces carried out strikes across Gaza today as they pressed ahead with an invasion that officials say could go on for months, even as global calls for a ceasefire left both Israel and its main ally, the United States, increasingly isolated.

The offensive has already brought unprecedented death and destruction to the impoverished coastal enclave: much of northern Gaza has been obliterated, more than 18,000 Palestinians killed, and over 80 per cent of the population of 2.3 million pushed from their homes.

The health system and aid operations have collapsed in large parts of the besieged territory, and aid workers have warned of starvation and the spread of disease among displaced people in overcrowded shelters and tent camps.

Strikes on Monday night and today in southern Gaza — in an area where civilians had previously been told to seek shelter — killed at least 23 people, including seven children and six women, according to hospital records.

Islam Harb’s three children were among those killed that night when Israeli air strikes flattened four residential buildings in the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

“My twin girls Maria and Joud were martyred, and my little son Ammar also martyred,” he said.

In central Gaza, al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 33 people killed in the night’s strikes, including 16 women and four children, according to hospital records. Many were killed in strikes that hit residential buildings in the built-up Maghazi refugee camp.

In northern Gaza, Israeli troops stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital, ordering all men, including medics, into the courtyard, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Israel launched its bloody revenge campaign after Hamas and allied militants broke through the blockade and rampaged into southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and seizing about 240 others, of which about half remain as hostages.

Much of the international community has rallied behind calls for an immediate ceasefire. But the United States vetoed those efforts at the United Nations security council last week while rushing tank munitions to Israel to allow it to maintain the offensive.

A non-binding vote on a similar resolution at the UN general assembly was scheduled for last night after the Star went to print.