Dozens of Israeli tanks entered the southern part of the Gaza Strip near Khan Younis on Monday, witnesses told AFP, with the Israeli military widely expected to start ground operations in the area soon.

Armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers were also seen. Amin Abu Hola, 59, said the Israeli vehicles were "two kilometres (1.2 miles) inside" the Palestinian territory in the village of Al-Qarara near Khan Younis, while Moaz Mohammed, 34, said Israeli tanks were on the southern part of Salah al-Din road which runs from the north to the south of the strip.

The Israeli army said Monday three more soldiers had been killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, raising the number of troop deaths there to 75 since the war began.

All three died in northern Gaza on Sunday, the military said. The deaths brought the total number of Israeli defence personnel killed since October 7 -- among them those who died in the Hamas attacks themselves, and including soldiers, reservists, kibbutz guards and others -- to 401.

Ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships Sunday in the Red Sea, while a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defense during the hourslong assault, the U.S. military said. The Iranian-backed Houthis claimed two of the attacks.

The strikes marked an escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war, as multiple vessels found themselves in the crosshairs of a single Houthi assault for the first time in the conflict. The U.S. vowed to "consider all appropriate responses" in the wake of the attack, specifically calling out Iran, after tensions have been high for years now over Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The Israeli military on Monday renewed its calls for mass evacuations from the southern town of Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge in recent weeks, as it widened its ground offensive and bombarded targets across the Gaza Strip.

The expanded offensive, following the collapse of a weeklong cease-fire, is aimed at eliminating Gaza's Hamas rulers, whose Oct. 7 attack into Israel triggered the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades. The war has already killed thousands of Palestinians and displaced over three-fourths of the territory's population of 2.3 million Palestinians, who are running out of safe places to go.

A "self-defense strike" was carried out in northern Iraq against a drone launch site, a U.S. military official said, after an air strike killed five pro-Iranian militants there.

"A self-defense strike was carried out on a drone staging site," the official said on condition of anonymity. It took place "in the vicinity of Kirkuk" and targeted "an imminent threat", he added.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday urged Israel to protect civilians as it battles Hamas in Gaza, saying that shielding noncombatants is necessary for victory in the urban fight against the Palestinian militant group.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed the day before after a week-long truce between the two sides collapsed, with both sides blaming the other for the breakdown of the deal and the resumption of violence.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard stated through its website that two of its forces stationed in Syria were killed in an Israeli airstrike Saturday.

The report on the Guard's news portal identified the two members as Mohammad Ali Ataei Shourcheh and Panah Taghizadeh, and said they were carrying out an advisory mission in Syria. It did not elaborate on their rank, or the area where they were killed.

Vice President Kamala Harris engaged in a speed round of diplomatic talks with Arab leaders on Saturday where she focused on shaping the outlook for a post-conflict Gaza while calling on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians from the "devastating" bombardment.

She made a hastily planned trip to the United Arab Emirates as the top American representative at the U.N. climate conference but the Israel-Ham1,as war was a main objective of her visit. She met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan and spoke by phone with Qatar's emir.

Israel's military on Sunday ordered more areas in and around Gaza's second-largest city of Khan Younis to evacuate, as it shifted its offensive to the southern half of the territory where it says many Hamas leaders are hiding.

Heavy bombardments were reported overnight and into Sunday in the area of Khan Younis and the southern city of Rafah, as well as parts of the north that had been the focus of Israel's blistering air and ground campaign.

Israeli air strikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.

The strikes near Damascus came less than 24 hours after the end of a Gaza truce between Hezbollah ally Hamas and Israel.