Israeli warplanes bombarded the Gaza Strip Tuesday in retaliation for the weekend attack by Hamas, amid rising concern about civilians caught up in the fighting.

The Israeli military said it carried out hundreds of airstrikes overnight, and that the attacks targeted a Hamas military compound, a weapons warehouse, and a command center in Gaza.

Many of the attacks hit Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighborhood, an area that is home to Hamas operational centers as well as residential buildings and offices of non-governmental organizations.

Military spokesperson Richard Hecht said the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters had been found in Israeli territory following their incursion Saturday, and that no militants had crossed into Israel since Monday.

The Israeli military said Hamas had also fired 4,500 rockets from Gaza since beginning its attack on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address late Monday that his country’s forces were “just beginning” their response.

“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations,” Netanyahu said.

Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement Tuesday that at least 200,000 of the 2.2 million residents of the Gaza Strip have been displaced by the conflict. She said the intensity of the fighting is making it difficult for humanitarian workers to deliver aid.

Hastings called on all parties to comply with their obligations under humanitarian law.

“Civilians, especially children, medical facilities, humanitarian personnel health workers, and journalists must be protected,” Hastings said. “Captured civilians must be released immediately and unconditionally. Anyone captured or detained, including combatants, must be treated humanely and with dignity.”

The statement came a day after comments from both Israel and Hamas that drew alarm from humanitarian groups.

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— Vishwajit Patil (@_VishwajitPatil) October 10, 2023

A Hamas military spokesperson threatened that its fighters would kill one of about 150 civilian hostages Hamas is holding any time Israel targets Gaza civilians without warning.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video statement that Israel would implement a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting the Palestinian territory off from access to electricity, food, water and gas.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters that while he recognizes Israel’s legitimate security concerns, military operations must be done within humanitarian law. He said civilians must be protected and civilian infrastructure must not be targeted.

“I am deeply distressed by today’s announcement that Israel will initiate a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, nothing allowed in – no electricity, food, or fuel,” Guterres said. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially.”

The death toll Monday rose to at least 900 people in Israel and 687 in Gaza, and that figure is expected to climb. Nearly 6,000 people on both sides were injured.

U.S. President Joe Biden said 11 Americans were among those killed.

The dead in Israel included people from Argentina, Britain, Cambodia, France, Nepal, Thailand and Ukraine, officials from those nations said.

Some governments have worked to carry out evacuation flights for their nationals in Israel. South Korea told VOA’s Korean service it expected a flight with 300 of its citizens to arrive in Seoul early Wednesday.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States issued a joint statement expressing “united support to the State of Israel, and our unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism.”

“All of us recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, and support equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike. But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations, and it offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed,” the statement said.

Ari Harow, former chief of staff to Netanyahu, told VOA’s Deewa service that Israel did not have a choice when entering the conflict, with Hamas militants attacking on one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar.

“This is not something that Israel had planned for or had wanted,” Harow said. “But once we have been dragged into this and once war was declared, the goal is one and very clear, and that is to destroy forever the terror infrastructure in Gaza, to make sure that the people of Israel, the citizens of Israel, don’t have to face this type of brutality ever again.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drew a parallel between Russia’s invasion of his country and the Hamas attack on Israel.

“The same evil, and the only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a video address Monday to a NATO parliamentary assembly in Copenhagen.

Gaith al-Omari, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told VOA that Russia will try to use the Israel-Hamas conflict to sever international support for Ukraine.

“If Israel conducts the war in a way that minimizes civilian casualties, I believe it will continue having international support,” al-Omari said. “Yet however, if they use unreasonable force, then the shift will change. In the meantime, yes, Russia will try to break the consensus. China will also try to break the consensus. This is going to be a test for the U.S. too.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

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