The Hamas-run Gaza Strip's health ministry said Wednesday the death toll from the war with Israel had surged above 21,000, about two thirds of them women and children.

Israel again pounded Gaza with air strikes and shelling after its armed forces chief warned the war raging with Hamas since the October 7 attacks will last "many more months".

U.S. military forces have shot down more than a dozen attack drones and several missiles fired by Yemen-based Houthi rebels at shipping in the Red Sea, the Pentagon said .

"There was no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries," the Pentagon's Central Command said in a social media post, describing a barrage of 12 drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and two land-attack missiles over a period of 10 hours.

An Israeli operation in a Palestinian refugee camp in the north of the occupied West Bank left six people dead and several others wounded early Wednesday, according to the Palestinian ministry of health.

"Six martyrs killed by the occupation (Israel) and some who were seriously wounded were transported to the Thabet Thabet government hospital in Tulkarem," the ministry said in a short statement.

Explosions were heard off the coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, state-linked media said, with witnesses reporting that they saw something fall into the Gulf of Aqaba.

Al Qahera News television, which has links to state intelligence, said the blasts occurred about two kilometers from the Egyptian seaside town of Dahab.

Israeli forces bombarded Palestinian refugee camps in central Gaza on Tuesday, residents said, in apparent preparation to expand their ground offensive into a third section of the besieged territory.

The opening of a potential new battle zone points to the long and destructive road still ahead as Israel vows to crush Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. For weeks, Israeli forces have been engaged in heavy urban fighting in northern Gaza and in the southern city of Khan Younis, driving Palestinians into further smaller corners of territory in search of refuge.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinians on Tuesday in a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The two -- aged 17 and 31 -- were shot dead in the Fawwar refugee camp, south of Hebron, the ministry said.

Russian air strikes on the last major rebel stronghold in Syria killed five civilians from the same family, including three children, rescuers and a war monitor said on Tuesday.

Moscow is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's key backers, providing him with military, political and economic support in the country's 12-year civil war.

Iraq on Tuesday denounced U.S. air strikes in the country as a "hostile act" after the Pentagon said it had targeted three sites used by pro-Iran forces after coming under fire.

The government said the strikes that killed one member of the security forces and wounded 18 other people, including civilians, were an "unacceptable attack on Iraqi sovereignty" that damaged bilateral relations.

A senior general with Iran's Revolutionary Guards was killed Monday by an Israeli strike in Syria, the military force said, with Tehran vowing to make Israel "pay for this crime."

Iranian state media also reported the death of Razi Moussavi, describing him as "one of the most experienced advisors" of Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The typically bustling biblical birthplace of Jesus resembled a ghost town Sunday after Christmas Eve celebrations in Bethlehem were called off due to the Israel-Hamas war.

The festive lights and Christmas tree that normally decorate Manger Square were missing, as were the throngs of foreign tourists and jubilant youth marching bands that gather in the West Bank town each year to mark the holiday. Dozens of Palestinian security forces patrolled the empty square.