Israel on Tuesday kept up its strikes against Gaza targets despite grave concern expressed by the United Nations, and international calls for a halt to the Israel-Hamas war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again vowed there would be no peace until the destruction of Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, and the military said the war would last months.

Israel’s army said it struck military sites and tunnel shafts in Jabalia, northern Gaza, as well as in Khan Yunis in the south, as heavy ground combat continued.

Black smoke clouded the sky over central Gaza on Tuesday afternoon and, in the south, horse-drawn carts carried some victims to hospital in Khan Yunis, AFP images showed.

The withering military campaign in Gaza, launched after unprecedented Hamas attacks against southern Israeli communities on October 7, has caused mass civilian casualties, widespread hunger and reduced much of the coastal territory to rubble.

Internet and telephone services were again cut across the Palestinian territory, “due to the ongoing offensive,” announced Gaza’s main telecoms firm, Paltel.

“We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces,” Seif Magango, spokesman for the United Nations Human Rights Office, said in a statement.