Tel Aviv/Gaza/Geneva, 27 October 2023 (dpa/MIA) — The Israeli military has said it has attacked dozens of positions of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement in further limited advances in the Gaza Strip.

As the army reported on Telegram on Friday morning, ground troops flanked by fighter jets and drones attacked launching pads for anti-tank missiles, command centres and Hamas terrorists the previous day.

Afterwards, the soldiers left the combat zone unharmed, it said.

The previous night, Israeli battle tanks had also made an advance in the north of the coastal strip.

Israel's military had already made several such advances into the Gaza Strip on a more limited scale in the past three weeks or so. They are seen as preparation for a planned ground offensive by Israel.

In the Gaza Strip, 481 people are reported to have died from Israeli rocket attacks in 24 hours, according to the health authority controlled by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement.

In the days before, the number was sometimes significantly higher. In total 7,028 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the latest conflict, 66% of them women and children, according to the authority.

The tally was as of 6 pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday.

The information cannot be independently verified.

UN organizations use the Gaza health authority's reports.

The Israeli military says it is trying to avoid civilian casualties wherever possible. It says there are warnings to flee rocket strikes.

Twelve more trucks carrying drinking water, food and humanitarian supplies entered Gaza on Thursday.

Before the Hamas terror attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel's subsequent closure of the area, 500 trucks carrying aid crossed the border every working day, according to UN figures.

The OCHA also gave a damage assessment by the Hamas authorities, which said 45% of all houses in the Gaza Strip are said to have been destroyed, that is just over 16,000, rendered uninhabitable, just over 11,000, or damaged, around 150,000, by the Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military says Hamas is hiding legitimate military targets among the houses.