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Air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed a Hamas weapons maker and several fighters, the Israeli military said on Wednesday, as its air and ground offensive targeted the militants' tunnel network beneath the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Gaza City, the Hamas militant group's main stronghold in the territory, is encircled by Israeli forces. The military said troops have advanced to the heart of the densely-populated city while Hamas says its fighters have inflicted heavy losses.

With the war now entering its second month, United Nations officials stepped up their appeals for a humanitarian pause in the hostilities to help alleviate the suffering in Gaza, where buildings have been flattened and basic supplies are running out. Palestinian officials say more than 10,000 people have been killed, 40% of them children.

The level of death and suffering is "hard to fathom", U.N. health agency spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.

"Every day, you think it is the worst day and then the next day is worse," Lindmeier said, quoting a colleague in Gaza.

Israel struck at Gaza in response to a Hamas raid on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which gunmen killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostages. The war has descended into the bloodiest episode in the generations-long Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel's stated intention is to wipe out Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, pounding it from air, land and sea while ground troops have moved in to divide the narrow coastal strip in two in fierce urban fighting amid the ruins of buildings.