An Israeli government ministry has drafted a wartime proposal to transfer the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million people to Egypt's Sinai peninsula, drawing condemnation from the Palestinians and worsening tensions with Cairo.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office played down the report compiled by the Intelligence Ministry as a hypothetical exercise — a "concept paper." But its conclusions deepened long-standing Egyptian fears that Israel wants to make Gaza into Egypt's problem, and revived for Palestinians memories of their greatest trauma — the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of people who fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948.

Israeli ground forces attacked Hamas militants and infrastructure on Tuesday in northern Gaza, which the military said some 800,000 people have fled since the war began more than three weeks ago, even as warplanes continued to strike from end to end of the sealed-off territory.

Buoyed by the first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush the militant group's ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war.

Paris has launched contacts with all those concerned with “what is happening on the ground” in the Israel-Hamas war, opening direct channels with Doha and Ankara to “explore the stances over the possibility of reaching a sustainable solution,” Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Monday.

Hamas on Monday released a video showing three women from among at least 239 people that Israel says were abducted to Gaza during the October 7 attacks by the Palestinian militant group.

It was not immediately possible to verify the identity of the women in the 76-second video in which one calls for Israel to make a deal for the release of all captives. Hamas said the women were "Zionist detainees".

As the 3-week-old Israel-Hamas war enters what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says could be a "long and difficult" new stage, President Joe Biden is calling on Israeli and Arab leaders to think hard about their eventual postwar reality.

It's one, he argues, where finally finding agreement on a long-sought two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict should be a priority.

Israel’s army said Monday it carried out air strikes on military infrastructure inside Syria as fears grow that its war against Hamas could spur a broader regional conflict.

“A short time ago, an IDF fighter jet attacked the launchers” from where overnight attacks originated toward Israeli territory, the military said, indicating it hit “military infrastructure in Syrian territory.”

Four Palestinians were killed early Monday in Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as Israeli forces clashed with Palestinians.

The ministry said five other Palestinians were wounded, including two with critical injuries.

Ground battles raged inside the northern Gaza Strip on Monday and Israeli tanks were seen on the outskirts of its largest city in the war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Israel’s intensifying land and air campaign since Hamas’s October 7 attacks has heightened fears for the 2.4 million civilians trapped inside besieged Gaza, where the Hamas-ruled health ministry says more than 8,000 have died.

Israeli tanks on Monday entered the edge of Gaza City and cut a key road from the north to the south of the war-torn Palestinian territory, witnesses told AFP.

The witnesses said tanks were seen in the Zaytun district. "They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it," said one resident.

Israel’s apparent decision to hold off on a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip and instead conduct more limited ground incursions, at least initially, aligns with suggestions that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made to his Israeli counterparts in recent days, the New York Times quoted American officials as saying.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Saturday evening that Israeli forces had entered the Gaza Strip on Friday to begin “the second stage of the war,” though he did not describe the move as an invasion. Military officials said earlier on Saturday that Israeli troops had pushed into the northern part of the enclave and remained there on Saturday evening.