Israeli ground troops waging a war on besieged Gaza said it had surrounded the Gaza City on Friday as top U.S. diplomat Antony Blinken arrived in Israel and declared that the country has right and a duty to defend itself.
Israel, meanwhile, began expelling thousands of Palestinian workers back to Gaza, despite ongoing fighting and airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians in the territory.
In Geneva, the United Nations launched an emergency aid appeal seeking $1.2 billion to help some 2.7 million people facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ahead of Blinken's arrival, Israel's military said it had "completed the encirclement" of Gaza's largest city – signaling a new phase in the nearly monthlong conflict.
Israel launched its indiscriminate attack on Gaze on Oct. 7 after a surprise incursion by Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said more than 9,227 people have died in Israeli bombardments, mostly women and children.
As Israeli forces moved to reestablish security on Gaza border after the incursion, thousands of Palestinian workers were trapped inside Israel.
On Friday, officials began to force them back into Gaza, media reports confirmed.
"Thousands of workers who were blocked in Israel since Oct. 7 have been brought back," Hisham Adwan, head of Gaza's crossings authority, told AFP.
Workers expelled
Israel had said it would start sending the workers back to Gaza.
"Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza," the Israeli security cabinet said Thursday.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said it was "deeply concerned" about the expulsions.
"They are being sent back, we don't know exactly to where," and whether they "even have a home to go to," spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell told a news conference in Geneva.
Before the war started, some 18,500 Gazans were holding Israeli work permits, according to Israeli defense officials, but it was not clear how many were in the country on Oct. 7.
New Israeli strikes rocked the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, an AFP correspondent said, and the Gaza health ministry reported at least 15 deaths in Gaza City's Zeitun neighborhood and seven in Jabalia refugee camp.
The Gazan Health Ministry said 14 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike as they fled from north to south Gaza. Witnesses said the strike hit Gaza's coastal road, which the army has previously told civilians to use to travel south.
Before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to ensure that harm to Palestinian civilians is reduced, in a visible shift of tone for the United States, which has promised full support and ramped-up military aid to Israel.
But, beginning his visit with talks with President Isaac Herzog, Blinken reiterated the basis of its support, telling reporters: "Israel has not only the right but the obligation to defend itself ... to make sure that this Oct. 7 never happens again."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had already had some "very impressive successes" with troops "more than on the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing," he said late Thursday at a base near Tel Aviv.
Although many of the city's half-a-million residents fled south following Israel's warning to leave ahead of a ground operation, those who stayed behind have endured weeks of aerial bombardment, dwindling supplies and daily carnage.
'Curse of history'
But yet more mayhem seems to lie ahead, as the conflict turns to urban and underground warfare – with Hamas tunnel complex believed to span hundreds of kilometers.
The Hamas-affiliated al-Qassam Brigades, insisted Israeli soldiers would go home "in black bags."
"Gaza will be the curse of history for Israel," spokesperson Abu Obeida said.
Israel's allies have backed its right to self-defense, but there is growing global concern and anger at how Israel has chosen to prosecute the war.
Addressing a summit of Turkic states in the Kazakh capital Astana, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for an immediate cease-fire, saying "crimes against humanity" were being committed in Gaza.
And Irish premier Leo Varadkar expressed concern that Israel's response had gone beyond tackling Hamas in self-defense and now "resembles something more approaching revenge."
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said to meet the needs of the 2.7 million people living in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank would cost $1.2 billion, and launched an appeal for donors.
Both Israel and the United States have ruled out a blanket cease-fire, which they say would allow Hamas to regroup and resupply.
U.S. President Joe Biden has backed "temporary, localized" pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian work to be done.