Gaza Strip - Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip overnight, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to travel to Egypt on Thursday for more talks aimed at containing Israel's brutal campaign.

The diplomat was set to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, a day after talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who "committed" to reforming the body to potentially reunite Gaza and the occupied West Bank under its leadership after the war, Blinken said.

The Middle East trip coincided with a UN Security Council resolution on Wednesday demanding an "immediate" end to attacks in the Red Sea by Yemen's Houthis carried out in solidarity with Palestinians under siege.

It also comes as Israel was set to face a powerful case brought by South Africa at the UN's top court on Thursday that it has committed genocidal acts in Gaza, charges both Israel and Blinken have dismissed – even as the death toll in Gaza has climbed to at least 23,357 people, mostly women and children.

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Hamas' press office said early Thursday that 62 people had been killed in strikes overnight, including around Gaza's main southern city of Khan Younis.

Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said in his evening briefing the night before that forces were continuing "to act decisively above and below ground" in the area.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said an Israeli strike on an ambulance in central Gaza killed four medics and two other passengers on Wednesday.

In Deir al-Balah, also in central Gaza, people wounded in a strike at a nearby school were brought to the Al-Aqsa hospital.

"There are injured people at the school since last night, no cars or ambulances are reaching it – nothing," Ramadan Darwit told AFP at the hospital.

Israel's actions in Gaza have triggered an acute humanitarian crisis, with an Israeli siege sparking shortages of food, water, fuel, and medicine.

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths posted on the social media platform X that Gaza's health sector "is being slowly choked off."

The World Health Organization called the humanitarian situation "indescribable."

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In the southern border town of Rafah, which has seen many displaced people arrive fleeing attacks further north, former Gaza health ministry staffer Zaki Shaheen converted his shop into a makeshift clinic.

Shaheen said he had worked in emergency care "my whole life."

"So we decided to open a medical department, and we got help from the health ministry," he told AFP, noting the goal was to take pressure off of already-overburdened hospitals.

"We receive no less than 30 or 40 cases per day, morning to night. I'll be sleeping, then someone comes in with an injury or a burn, so we treat them."

The United Nations estimates 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced inside the territory, which had already endured years of blockade under Israel's apartheid regime.

Blinken sketched out a possible future for Gaza after meeting Abbas and Bahrain's King Hamad on Wednesday.

Blinken told Abbas that Washington supported "tangible steps" towards the creation of a Palestinian state – a long-term goal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-right government has opposed.

In Bahrain, Blinken said Abbas was "committed" to reforming the Palestinian Authority "so that it can effectively take responsibility for Gaza, so that Gaza and the West Bank can be reunited under a Palestinian leadership."

Blinken's trip, in which he once again declared continued US support for Israel, comes as he, President Joe Biden, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin face a federal lawsuit accusing them of complicity in genocide.