Conditions worsen in Gaza as Israeli troops advance

Israeli ground troops and tanks pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip and were edging closer to the territory's main city, local authorities said Tuesday, as humanitarian officials warned that 2 million Palestinian civilians there faced a growing catastrophe.

The Gazan Interior Ministry said Israeli forces were in al Karama, a neighborhood north of densely populated Gaza City, and Salah al-Din Street, the strip's main north-south highway. It added that the forces were trying to reach Al-Rasheed Street, a coastal highway, "as they seek to separate the northern Gaza Strip from its south."

The Israeli military continued to offer few details about its ground invasion, now in a fifth day, saying only that its forces were "conducting fierce battles" against the armed group Hamas inside the strip.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday categorically dismissed any possibility of a cease-fire, even as United Nations humanitarian officials told the U.N. Security Council that an immediate halt to the fighting was vital to save civilian lives.

"The scale of the horror people are experiencing in Gaza is really hard to convey," Martin Griffiths, the U.N.'s chief official for humanitarian and relief affairs, said in a statement Monday. "People are becoming increasingly desperate, as they search for food, water and shelter amid the relentless bombing campaign that is wiping out whole families and entire neighborhoods."

Here's what else to know:

-- Despite growing international criticism of Israel's airstrikes in Gaza, Netanyahu said that pleas for a cease-fire amounted to "calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism."

-- Photos, satellite images and videos verified by The New York Times showed formations of troops and armored vehicles approaching Gaza City and nearby population centers from the north, east and south.

-- The World Health Organization said services had been "severely reduced" at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza's only cancer center, after "extremely concerning reports of airstrikes" in its vicinity over the last two days.

-- Israel said its forces had rescued a soldier abducted on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants, Ori Megidish. The Foreign Ministry also confirmed the death of Shani Louk, a 23-year-old German Israeli citizen believed to have been kidnapped at a music festival.

-- Hamas' armed wing released a video Monday of three women who were being held hostage. One of them sharply criticized Netanyahu, saying they were being held in "unbearable conditions" and demanding that he free Hamas prisoners. In a statement, Netanyahu's office called the footage "cruel psychological propaganda" and said Israel was doing everything it could to bring the hostages home.