Tel Aviv, 31 October 2023 (dpa/MIA) - The Israeli military said soldiers are engaged in "fierce hand-to-hand combat" in Gaza as it presses forward with the ground offensive against Hamas, amid a UN warning that the battlefield had turned into a "graveyard" for children.

"Hundreds of targets of the murderous Hamas terror organization" had been attacked in "coordinated air and ground strikes," Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday.

"As we speak, our soldiers are fighting on the battlefield ... engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat, eliminating terrorists," Hagari said. "The coming weeks will require resilience and patience from all of us."

After weeks of relentless airstrikes, Israel's army ushered in a new phase of the war against Hamas, which controls Gaza, by launching sustained ground operations at the weekend.

Israel declared its plans to wipe out Hamas after its militants went on a rampage through Israeli towns bordering Gaza, killing 1,400 people three weeks ago.

According to the Israeli army, at least 240 people are being held hostage in Gaza and another 40 people are still missing since the attacks.

On Monday night, Israel announced that an IDF soldier held captive by Hamas had been rescued. Ori Megidish was the first hostage to be rescued alive by the Israeli military.

Four other hostages have been released in recent days by Hamas.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 8,525 people have been killed in the coastal strip since the war began.

The UN children's agency UNICEF said that so far 3,450 children have been killed in Gaza.

"Gaza has become a graveyard for children," UNICEF spokesman James Elder said in Geneva on Tuesday.

At least 100 truckloads are needed every day to provide for the basic needs of the 2.2 million people who live in the Gaza Strip, the UN has said.

Another convoy of 26 trucks carrying urgently needed humanitarian aid like food and medicine - but not fuel - arrived in Gaza on Monday evening, bringing the total to 144 since the beginning of the war.

Before the war began, an average of 500 trucks entered the Palestinian territory daily.

On the battlefield, the Israeli army said its ground operations were advancing but did not reveal the locations.

Hamas said that fighting was taking place with Israelis at several locations around Gaza City.

According to the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, its fighters attacked four Israeli army vehicles south of Gaza City.

In north-western Gaza, a tank and a bulldozer were attacked with two anti-tank missiles and other vehicles were fired upon north of the city.

In addition, soldiers on foot near the Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south-east of the Gaza Strip were fired upon with mortar shells, Hamas said.

The information could not be independently verified.

Hamas fighters fired rockets once again towards central and southern Israel on Tuesday triggering several rocket alarms.

Elsewhere, Israeli missile defences have intercepted a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea area, according to the army.

This was the first operational interception by the Arrow missile defence system since the beginning of the war, the army said on Tuesday. The rocket was fired "from the Red Sea area" into Israel and was intercepted outside Israel, it said.

Since the war began, Palestinian militants have fired thousands of rockets at Israel from Gaza. The border with Lebanon has also seen increasing confrontations, with deaths on both sides. Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militia has links to Hamas.