U.S. President Joe Biden said that progress had been made on securing a so-called "humanitarian pause" in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, as his secretary of state worked on the same issue in the Middle East.

When asked if any progress had been made on the issue, Biden replied "yes" as he left a church in Delaware and offered a thumbs up before getting into his vehicle. He did not give any further details.

Arab leaders decrying the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the Israel-Hamas war pushed for an immediate cease-fire Saturday even as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that such a move would be counterproductive and could encourage more violence by the militant group.

After an afternoon of talks with Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Qatari and Emirati diplomats and a senior Palestinian official, Blinken stood side by side at a line of podiums with his counterparts from Jordan and Egypt to discuss what he said was their shared desire to protect civilians in Gaza and improve aid flows to the besieged territory.

Thousands of Israelis protested outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence in central Jerusalem, calling on the Israeli leader to resign in the wake of the bloody Oct. 7 Hamas rampage that sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Netanyahu has so far refused to take responsibility for the Oct. 7 attack, in which hundreds of Hamas militants burst into Israel and allegedly killed over 1,400 people and took some 240 hostages back to Gaza. He says officials, including himself, will have to give answers to the public, but only after the war.

Israeli warplanes struck a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, killing at least 33 people and wounding dozens, health officials said. The strike came as Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush the territory's Hamas rulers, despite U.S. appeals for a pause to get aid to desperate civilians.

The soaring death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international anger, with tens of thousands from Washington to Berlin taking to the streets Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began meetings with Arab foreign ministers in Jordan on Saturday, seeking to mitigate the nearly month-long Gaza war after Israel resisted his calls for a humanitarian pause.

The Israeli army said its ground forces had operated in southern Gaza overnight, after deadly strikes hit an ambulance convoy and a school-turned-refugee shelter in the besieged Palestinian territory.

The remaining residents of Israel's northern settlement of Kiryat Shmona, those who have not fled rising cross-border fire from south Lebanon, have said that they are ready for whatever happens.

The Israel-Lebanon border has seen escalating tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, since Palestinian militants of Hezbollah ally Hamas launched a shock attack on Israel on October 7, stoking fears of a wider regional conflict.

Julia Norman, an associate professor of politics and international relations at University College London, has said that both U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah -- two actors who “are going to be very influential on how the conflict moves from this point” -- have both offered signals Friday against a wider war.

“That’s not to say it won’t, but the messaging today from both seemed to be ... trying to operate within a sense of restraint and to not have this ripple out even further,” she said.

An Israeli strike on a Gaza ambulance convoy has killed 15 people, Palestinian medics said Saturday, spurring concerns for health workers' safety as Israel accused Hamas of using the vehicles to transport fighters.

Since a shock Hamas attack on October 7, which Israeli officials say has killed 1,400 soldiers and civilians, Israel has bombarded the besieged Gaza Strip, where some hospitals have been damaged and faced severe shortages of fuel and supplies.

Palestinians in Gaza reported Israeli airstrikes overnight into Saturday across the besieged enclave, including the southern part where Israel had told civilians to seek refuge as its ground operation intensifies in northern Gaza.

Raed Mattar, who had fled northern Gaza early in the war and is sheltering in a school in the southern town of Khan Younis, said he heard explosions, apparently from airstrikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back against growing U.S. pressure for a "humanitarian pause" in the nearly month-old war to protect civilians and allow more aid into Gaza, insisting there would be no temporary cease-fire until the roughly 240 hostages held by Hamas are released.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made his third trip to Israel since the war began, reiterating American support for Israel's campaign to crush Hamas after its unprecedented Oct. 7 attack in Israel. He also echoed President Joe Biden's calls for a brief halt in the fighting to address the worsening humanitarian crisis.