Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht has said forces were engaged in “close combat” with Hamas fighters who were armed “with anti-tank missiles, explosive devices and more”.

Israel’s military describes Gaza City as “the centre of the Hamas terror organisation”, saying it is targeting Hamas operatives, weapons stores, tunnel complexes, drone launching posts and command centres. But with strikes taking place in densely populated urban areas, thousands of civilians have been killed.

Speaking in Tel Aviv, Blinken accused Hamas of “cynically and monstrously” using civilians as human shields, and of deliberately locating military assets “beneath residential buildings, schools, mosques, hospitals”.

But a key focus of his trip was to convince Israel to enact “humanitarian pauses”, which the United States believes could help secure the release of roughly 240 hostages thought to be in Hamas captivity, and to allow aid to be distributed to Gaza’s beleaguered population.

Netanyahu, who has made a political career out of hawkish security policies, warned that there could be no “temporary truce” in Gaza until Hamas releases the hostages.