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.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel on Friday that it risks destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acts swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.

In a blunt call for Israel to pause military operations in the territory to allow for the immediate and increased delivery of assistance, Blinken said the current situation would drive Palestinians toward further radicalism and effectively end prospects for any eventual resumption of peace talks to end the conflict.

The government in Gaza said Friday an Israeli strike hit a convoy of ambulances, which the health ministry said killed multiple people near the territory's largest hospital.

A government statement said Israeli forces targeted "a convoy of ambulances which was transporting the wounded", while the health ministry said several people were killed in the strike near Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel Friday to press the Israeli government on its ongoing offensive in Gaza amid growing international condemnation and a steadily mounting civilian death toll.

The top U.S. diplomat, who traveled twice to Israel last month in the wake of the deadly Hamas attack, is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet in Tel Aviv as the U.S. government continues to attempt balancing support for Israel’s defense with an increasingly public call for them to protect civilians.