CIA Director William Burns is in the Middle East meeting with intelligence partners and leaders of several countries on matters including ones related to the war between Israel and Hamas, a U.S. official said.

Topics include the fate of some 240 people being held hostage by the Hamas militant group in Gaza, and the U.S. commitment to prevent state and nonstate actors from widening the Israel-Hamas war regionally, the U.S. official said.

Death, destruction and despair.

For the past month it has reigned on both sides of the border separating Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. Security Council has failed again to agree on a resolution on the monthlong Israel-Hamas war.

Despite more than two hours of closed-door discussions Monday, differences remained. The U.S. is calling for "humanitarian pauses" while many other council members are demanding a "humanitarian cease-fire" to deliver desperately needed aid and prevent more civilian deaths in Gaza.

Fresh from a whirlwind tour of the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shifted his intense diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war to Asia on Tuesday with an appeal for the Group of Seven leading industrial democracies to forge consensus on how to deal with the crisis.

As he and his G7 counterparts began two days of talks in Japan, Blinken said it was critically important for the group to show unity as it has over Russia's war in Ukraine and other major issues and prevent existing differences on Gaza from deepening.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will have "overall security responsibility" in Gaza for an indefinite period after its war with Hamas, the clearest indication yet that Israel plans to maintain control over the coastal enclave that is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.

In an interview with ABC News that aired late Monday, Netanyahu expressed openness to "little pauses" in the fighting to facilitate the release of some of the more than 240 captives seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack into Israel, which triggered the war exactly one month ago.

Israeli troops divided the northern and southern parts of Gaza, as communications across the besieged territory were temporarily cut Monday for a third time since the war started. The troops are expected to enter Gaza City on Monday or Tuesday, Israeli media reported.

The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war surpassed 10,000, including more than 4,100 children and 2,640 women, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

In a convenience store in Bahrain, 14-year-old Jana Abdullah carries a tablet as she shops, checking a list of Western brands to avoid as Israel pounds Gaza in its campaign to destroy Hamas.

Jana and her 10-year-old brother, Ali, used to eat at McDonald's nearly daily but they are among many across the Middle East now boycotting products they believe support Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was wrapping up a grueling Middle East diplomatic tour on Monday in Turkey after only limited success in his furious efforts to forge a regional consensus on how best to ease civilian suffering in Gaza as Israel intensifies its war against Hamas.

Blinken met in the Turkish capital of Ankara with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after a frantic weekend of travel that took him from Israel to Jordan, the occupied West Bank, Cyprus and Iraq to build support for the Biden administration's proposal for "humanitarian pauses" to Israel's relentless military campaign in Gaza.

A knife-wielding Palestinian assailant stabbed and seriously wounded a female Israeli soldier before being shot dead in annexed east Jerusalem on Monday, police said.

"A terrorist armed with a knife arrived at Shalem police station and stabbed a female soldier... border police forces neutralised the terrorist by shooting," police said in a statement.

Intense Israeli strikes killed more than 200 people overnight in the Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry in the besieged Palestinian territory said Monday.

"More than 200 martyrs were reported in the overnight massacres," the ministry said in a statement, adding the death toll only covered Gaza City and the northern part of the Gaza Strip.