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.

At least 68 people were killed by an Israeli strike in central Gaza, health officials said Sunday, while the number of Israeli soldiers killed in combat over the weekend rose to 17.

Associated Press journalists at a nearby hospital watched frantic Palestinians carry the dead, including a baby, and wounded following the strike on the Maghazi refugee camp east of Deir al-Balah. One bloodied young girl looked stunned while her body was checked for broken bones.

Egypt has put forward an ambitious, initial proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war with a cease-fire, a phased hostage release and the creation of a Palestinian government of experts who would administer the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank, a senior Egyptian official and a European diplomat said Monday.

The proposal, worked out with the Gulf nation of Qatar, has been presented to Israel, Hamas, the United States and European governments but still appeared preliminary. It falls short of Israel's professed goal of outright crushing Hamas and would appear not to meet Israel's insistence on keeping military control over Gaza for an extended period after the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Gaza war was exacting a "very heavy price" as the toll of soldiers killed in fighting with Hamas mounted.

"This is a difficult morning, after a very difficult day of fighting in Gaza," he said after the army announced 14 soldiers had been killed in the Palestinian territory since Friday.

Fourteen Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the Israeli military said Sunday, in some of the bloodiest days of battle since the start of the ground offensive and a sign that Hamas is still putting up a fight despite weeks of brutal war.

The mounting death toll among Israeli troops is likely to play an important factor in Israeli public support for the war, which was sparked when Hamas-led militants stormed communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, allegedly killing 1,200, according to Israeli officials, and taking 240 hostage. The war has devastated parts of the Gaza Strip, killed roughly 20,400 Palestinians and displaced nearly 85% of Gaza's 2.3 million people.