Al-Aqsa hospital

The United Nations on Monday said humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip has taken a serious blow after Israel ordered a new evacuation in the center of the besieged territory.

It came as the United States announced "progress" in Gaza truce talks underway in Cairo, even after a major but brief cross-border escalation between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

At the time of the bombing, Mohammed Abu al-Qumsan had gone to the registry office to obtain the birth certificates for his children.

A Palestinian father lost his newborn children, his wife, and his mother-in-law in a bombing by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip, according to sources at Al-Aqsa Hospital.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a strike on a displacement camp in the south of the Palestinian territory killed at least 20 people Saturday.

More than 90 others were injured in the strike on Al-Mawasi camp, the ministry said, condemning a "brutal massacre."

The head of the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital said on Monday he had been "tortured" by Israel after being freed from more than seven months of detention.

Al-Shifa hospital director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was among more than 50 Palestinians released and returned to Gaza for treatment, according to an Israeli minister and a medical source in the besieged territory.

A food aid organisation said an Israeli strike killed several of its workers in the besieged Gaza Strip on Monday, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reporting that four of them were foreigners.

"Today, World Central Kitchen lost several of its sisters and brothers in an Israeli army strike in Gaza," said the NGO's founder, chef Jose Andres.

Israeli strikes hit south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top U.S. diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.

Gaza's health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours.

World Health Organization staff visited Monday a Gaza hospital receiving casualties from deadly strikes on a refugee camp, hearing distressing stories of entire families killed and seeing dying children.