The United Nations on Wednesday decried strikes on Gaza's largest refugee camp that killed scores of people in attacks that Israel said targeted a Hamas commander.
"This is just the latest atrocity to befall the people of Gaza where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly dreadful humanitarian consequences," Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said in a statement.
A first group of foreigners and dual nationals fleeing war-torn Gaza arrived in Egypt on Wednesday, mostly women and children, an Egyptian official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Parents with strollers and elderly people were seen among those getting off a bus on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing in footage broadcast by an Egyptian TV channel close to the intelligence services.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said Wednesday that 8,796 people have been killed since the war with Israel erupted on October 7.
The death toll includes 3,648 children while 22,219 people have been wounded, a health ministry statement said.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Muslim countries Wednesday to halt trade with Israel, including oil exports, in response to its bombardment of Gaza since deadly Hamas attacks.
"Islamic governments must insist on quickly ending the crimes," Khamenei told a gathering of students in Tehran.
"Muslim countries should not cooperate economically with the Zionist regime (Israel)," he said, calling for a "block on oil and food exports".
Khamenei lambasted Western governments who "stood against Palestine", naming Britain, France and the United States.
"The Muslim world must not forget who is putting pressure on the population of Gaza. It's not just about the Zionist regime," he said.
Hamas said Wednesday that seven hostages, including three foreign passport holders, were killed in Israel's bombing of Gaza's largest refugee camp.
Dozens of bodies were seen on Tuesday at the Jabalia camp where Israel said it killed a Hamas military commander in a strike on a tunnel complex.
"Seven detainees were killed in the Jabalia massacre yesterday, including three holders of foreign passports," said a statement from the Hamas military wing.
The Lebanese government and human rights group Amnesty International have accused Israel of using white phosphorous during an attack on Dhayra in south Lebanon on October 16. Amnesty said that civilians in southern Lebanon were injured earlier this month when Israeli forces hit a border village with shells containing white phosphorus, a controversial incendiary munition.
A barrage of Israeli airstrikes levelled apartment buildings in a refugee camp near Gaza City on Tuesday, and footage showed rescuers pulling men, women and children from the rubble. Israel said the strike destroyed a Hamas command centre set up in civilian houses and an underground tunnel network.
Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry gave an initial toll of more than 50 dead and 150 wounded but said dozens more were likely buried under the rubble, denouncing what it called "a heinous Israeli massacre" at the camp.
