Smoke billows following Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Wednesday. Reuters

Gulf Today Report

More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed in the Israel-Hamas conflict, an Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson said Wednesday, up from 1,000 previously reported. Gaza officials reported 900 people killed so far.

"The death toll is a staggering 1,200 dead Israelis," IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said in a video message, adding that "the overwhelming majority of them" were civilians.

Israel said it recaptured Gaza border areas from Hamas on Tuesday, the fourth day of fierce fighting that has left thousands dead on both sides since the militants launched a surprise attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel's military campaign following Saturday's onslaught is only the start of a sustained war to destroy Hamas and "change the Middle East".

Fears of a regional conflagration have surged ahead of an expected Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, the crowded, impoverished enclave from where Hamas launched its land, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.

International NGOs issued a stark warning over the health and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

A view shows houses and buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City. Reuters  

Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Beeri alone, said Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law.

The Israeli army has called up 300,000 reservists and massed tanks and other heavy armour both near Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire continued.

The military said its forces had largely reclaimed the embattled south and the border around Gaza, and dislodged holdout Hamas fighters from more than a dozen towns and kibbutzim.

But late Tuesday in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, troops backed by helicopters and drones exchanged fire with Palestinian group Hamas’ members, leaving three fighters dead, the army said.

A new barrage of rockets was also fired from Gaza towards Ashkelon.