had been killed. she described the scale of suffering as devastating. the us defense secretary, lloyd austin, in his strongest comments yet on israel s need to protect civilians, said that driving the civilian population into the arms of the enemy would replace israel s tactical victory with a strategic defeat. you see in this kind of a fight, the centre of gravity is the civilian population. and if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. so, i have repeatedly made clear to israel s leaders that protecting palestinian civilians in gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative. for his part, the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu, said the war would continue for as long as hamas was active. translation: we will continue the war until we achieve - all its goals, and it s impossible to achieve those goals without the ground operation. the ground operation was necessary to bring the results until
israel has intensified its military operations in the south of the gaza strip. the idf says it s hit more than 400 targets since a week long truce between israel and hamas collapsed on friday. this is live outside al nasser hospital in khan younis. a place that many people in the north have lied to. fled to. palestinian health officials say at least 200 and a0 people have been killed since the end of the truce. at least seven palestinians were killed in an israeli attack in the early hours of sunday near rafah. we re also keeping an eye on what s happening further north. this is the view from southern israel, looking at the gaza skyline. all this as israel has come under renewed pressure from top figures in the biden administration. the defence secretary, lloyd austin has said israel driving the civilian population into the arms of the enemy and that would be a strategic defeat. our middle east correspondent hugo bachega has the latest. khan younis in southern gaza. p