Drone footage showed on Sunday (October 29) the destruction caused to the Bilal Bin Rabah mosque in Gaza's Deir Al-Balah, after an Israeli airstrike early this morning.

Gaza's besieged residents faced a near-total communications and Internet blackout on Saturday (October 28) as Israel's warplanes dropped bombs and its troops and armor pushed into the Hamas-ruled enclave, with Israeli military chiefs signaling they were gearing up for an expanded ground offensive.

Israeli forces waged ground operations against Hamas in Gaza on Sunday in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the second phase of a three-week-old war aimed at crushing the Palestinian militant group.

Israel has tightened its blockade and bombarded Gaza for three weeks since the Islamist group Hamas' devastating October 7 attack. At least 1,400 Israelis were killed in the deadliest day of the nation's 75-year history, Israeli authorities said.

Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, say 7,650 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's campaign to obliterate the Iran-backed militants. —Story from Reuters