An Israeli truck moves along the border with the northern Gaza Strip from a position in southern Israel on Monday. AFP

The Israeli army has raided and detained staff at two of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza’s north, where the defence minister said on Tuesday that troops were working to completely clear out Hamas militants.

Israel bombarded towns across southern Gaza on Tuesday with airstrikes, killing at least 45 Palestinians and pressing ahead with its offensive with renewed backing from the United States, despite rising international alarm.

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, warned the campaign in Gaza’s south will persist for months.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Members of the UNSC hold sideline meetings as they take a break at the UN headquarters in New York. AFP

In a hospital in the southern town of Rafah, Mahmoud Zoarab bid farewell to his two children — a 2-year-old boy, and a girl born two weeks ago — killed in a predawn strike on their home.

Wounded in the strike, he winced as he peeled back the shrouds to look at their faces as his wife and mother stood by his bed.

"Just two weeks old. Her name hadn’t even been registered,” said the children's grandmother, Suzan Zoarab. Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she cried, "Does he think that by killing these children he will achieve something? Have they succeeded now? Has he achieved what he wants?”

This handout shows Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip. AFP

Israeli troops have raided a series of hospitals and shelters in the north, detaining men in a search for militants and expelling others taking refuge there.

Gallant said that in southern Gaza, operations will take "months,” including the military's assault on Khan Younis, the territory's second largest city. "We will not stop until we reach our goals,” he said.

After meeting with Israeli officials on Monday, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel to protect civilians but reiterated America's support for Israel in its war against Hamas, saying he was "not here to dictate timelines or terms.”

Palestinians search for bodies and survivors in the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah. AP

Austin's remarks signaled that the US would continue shielding Israel from growing international calls for a cease-fire as the UN Security Council again delayed a vote — and would keep providing aid for one of the 21st century’s deadliest military campaigns.

Suzan Zoarab said her family was asleep when their home was hit before dawn.

"We found the whole house had collapsed over us.” Twenty-seven people were killed in the strike, along with at least three others in a separate strike in Rafah, according to the media journalists who saw the bodies arrive at two local hospitals early on Tuesday.

Palestinians wounded in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are brought to the hospital on Tuesday. AP

Rafah, which is in the southern part of Gaza and where Israel has told Palestinians to seek shelter, has been repeatedly bombarded, often killing large numbers of civilians. Israel said Tuesday it had killed a prominent Hamas financier in an airstrike on Rafah, without specifying when it occurred.

Israeli forces raided the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City overnight, according to the church that operates it, destroying a wall at its front entrance and detaining most of its staff.

The facility was the scene of an explosion early in the war that killed dozens of Palestinians, and which an Associated Press investigation later determined was likely caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Associated Press