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JERUSALEM - Israel pressed on with its aerial and ground campaign targeting Hamas militants in Gaza on Thursday, striking dozens of targets as the death toll across the besieged strip surged.

Hamas fighters carried out an unprecedented attack against Israel from Gaza on October 7, killing about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took around 250 hostages, of whom 105 have been released and several killed, including by friendly fire.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in ground troops in an offensive that has killed at least 20,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian territory's Hamas government.

On day 76 of the war, here are five key developments from the past 24 hours:
Border crossing chief killed — Hamas.

An Israeli strike killed the head of the Palestinian side of the newly reopened Kerem Shalom border crossing on Thursday, Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip said.

This picture taken from the Israeli side of border with Lebanon shows an Israeli jet flying over southern Lebanon on December 21, 2023 amid increasing cross-border tensions.

After weeks of pressure, Israel approved the temporary reopening of the Kerem Shalom crossing on December 15 to enable aid to be delivered directly to Gaza, rather than through the Rafah crossing from Egypt.

Crossing director Bassem Ghaben and three other people were killed as Israeli aircraft targeted the infrastructure, the crossings authority and the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory said.

Israeli officials did not immediately comment.

Palestinians 'summarily killed'

The United Nations human rights office said it had received reports that Israeli troops "summarily killed" at least 11 unarmed Palestinians in a possible war crime in Gaza.

It said it had obtained "disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defence Forces (the Israeli army) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men".

The Israeli army did not immediately comment. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the claims "yet another example of the partisan and prejudiced approach against Israel that the OHCHR has adopted for years now."

Gaza death toll rises

The Hamas media office said Wednesday at least 20,000 people have been killed in the besieged territory since October 7, including 8,000 children and 6,200 women.

Mourners attend the funeral of 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Zaoul in the village of Husan near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on December 21, 2023.

North Gaza hospitals not functioning

There are no longer any functional hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization said Thursday, describing "unbearable" scenes of largely abandoned patients begging for food and water.

The UN health agency said it had led missions to two badly damaged hospitals, Al-Shifa and Al-Ahli, in the north of the Palestinian territory on Wednesday.

The mission revealed that Al-Ahli, which just two days ago was "overwhelmed with patients needing emergency care", was now "a shell of a hospital".

Of Gaza's original 36 hospitals, only nine are now partially functional, all of them in the south.

Security Council to vote

The UN Security Council was to try once again Thursday to pass a resolution calling for a halt in fighting after previous efforts to win Washington's backing fell short.

The United Arab Emirates is sponsoring a proposed resolution which has already been watered down to secure compromise, according to a draft version seen by AFP.

It calls for "the urgent suspension of hostilities to allow safe and unhindered humanitarian access, and for urgent steps towards a sustainable cessation of hostilities".