Israel says there will be no pause in its siege of the Gaza Strip for aid or evacuations until all its hostages are freed as the United States urged it to protect civilians and the Red Cross warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, arriving in Tel Aviv on a trip to show solidarity, told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would always be by Israel’s side and give security assistance but he urged Israel to show restraint “even when it’s difficult”.

Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip, in retribution for the deadliest attack on civilians in Israeli history when hundreds of gunmen crossed the barrier and rampaged through towns on Saturday.

Admission of security failures

The head of the Israeli military, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, said lessons would be drawn from the security failures around Gaza that enabled the attack.

“The IDF is responsible for defending the country and its citizens, and Saturday morning, in the area around Gaza, we did not live up to it,” he said.

“We will learn, investigate, but now is the time for war.”

Public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1300.

Most were civilians gunned down in their homes, on the streets or at a dance party.

Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza; Israel says it has identified 97 of them.

Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi has acknowledged the failures of the army against Hamas attacks.

Hours of fuel left

Israel has responded so far by putting Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, under total siege and launching by far the most powerful bombing campaign in the 75-year-old history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, destroying whole neighbourhoods.

Gaza authorities said more than 1400 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6000 have been wounded.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said fuel powering emergency generators at hospitals in Gaza could run out within hours.

“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” ICRC regional director Fabrizio Carboni said.

“The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent, and I implore the sides to reduce the suffering of civilians.”

Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said there would be no exceptions to the siege without freedom for Israeli hostages.

“No electrical switch will be lifted, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And nobody should preach us morals,” Katz posted on social media platform X.

Egypt, which has a single border crossing with Gaza, said it was trying to allow in aid there.

In the biggest sign yet of the conflict potentially spilling across borders, Syria said Israeli air strikes had hit the airports in Damascus and Aleppo, putting both out of service.

Emotional Blinken affirms support

Standing beside Netanyahu, Blinken said: “You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself. But as long as America exists, you will never ever have to. We will always be there by your side.”

Netanyahu said: “Thank you, America, for standing with Israel, today, tomorrow and always.”

Blinken also offered an emotional, personal aside, recounting how his own grandfather had fled pogroms in Russia and his stepfather survived Nazi concentration camps.

“I understand on a personal level the harrowing echoes that Hamas’ massacres carry for Israeli Jews, indeed, for Jews everywhere,” he said.

“We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by striving for a different standard, even when it’s difficult. That’s why it’s so important to take every possible precaution to avoid harming civilians.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned violence against civilians.

Blinken will visit Jordan on Friday to meet King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority that operates limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Abbas, whose Fatah faction is a longstanding foe of Hamas, condemned violence against civilians on both sides on Thursday.

“We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted Abbas as saying.

PM, Dutton responses criticised

The prime minister and opposition leader’s responses to the Israel-Hamas conflict are putting Muslim Australians in danger, Islamic representatives say.

Religious representatives have condemned the response to violence in Israel and Gaza by Australia’s political leaders, accusing them of fomenting hate against the local Muslim community.

In a statement, the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) decried Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his affirmation of Israel’s bombing campaign on the Gaza strip.

“We stand by Israel and its right to protect itself,” the PM previously told ABC radio.

The network said through his comments Mr Albanese had sided with the occupying power and showed no support for Palestinians.

“Hundreds of Palestinian civilians also lost their lives,” they said.

“(He has) denied many grieving communities public empathy or support”.

They also called out Opposition Peter Dutton after he said the government should support Israeli retaliation without restraint, saying his stance was extreme and “outside the bounds of international norms and the rule of law”.

“It also devalues Palestinian lives, putting them and anyone that is associated with them in danger in Palestine and Australia,” the group wrote.

Mr Dutton also called for non-citizens who preached anti-Semitic speech at the pro-Palestinian protests to be deported.

“People with that hate in their minds in their hearts – they don’t have any place in our society,” he told 2GB.Peter Dutton has called for non-citizens who preach anti-Semitic speech at protests to be deported.

Such responses had sparked hate incidents against the Australian Muslim community and had detrimental effects for members’ health, wellbeing and safety, AMAN wrote.

More than 1000 Palestinians are believed to have died and more than 5000 were wounded in retaliatory air strikes on Gaza.

Among those killed in Israel was Australian grandmother Galit Carbone, 66, who died at the hands of the Hamas militants who attacked her village near the Gaza border.

Repatriation flights

With an estimated 10,000 Australians resident in Israel and even more there as tourists, repatriation flights will begin bringing the stranded home from Tel Aviv on Friday.

But the Muslim community said this would not help Australians stuck in Gaza after the closure of border crossings and ongoing Israeli airstrikes made it effectively impossible to travel to Tel Aviv.

“The planned repatriation should include real support to those that are stranded in Gaza and the West Bank,” Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Rateb Jneid said.

—AAP