More than 800 Israelis and 500 Palestinians have died amid heavy fighting and bombardment following the largest attack by the Palestinian Hamas group against Israel in decades.
Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Monday authorities would impose a total blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Gallant added that government would cut electricity and block food and fuel supplies as part of “a complete siege” on the Hamas-run enclave.
This came as Gaza’s Ministry of Health said at least 510 Palestinians had died and 2,751 more wounded in Israeli air raids since Saturday.
Hamas, on Saturday, launched its multipronged offensive on Israel.
In Israel, the number of people killed has reached 800, with more than 2,200 also wounded.
The Israeli military said it hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza, including air raids that levelled much of the town of Beit Hanoon.
Israelis know Beit Hanoon as Erez, in the enclave’s northeast corner.
The United Nations said the intense bombardment has displaced more than 123,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Residents of Gaza, a tiny enclave of 2.3 million people, feared further escalation. An Israeli-Egyptian blockade had sealed off the Gaza for 16 years.
Al Jazeera’s Jamileh Abu Zanoona, reporting from Gaza, said the territory’s Shujayea neighbourhood was heavy bombarded on Monday.
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An overnight Israeli air raid on the Yarmouk neighbourhood in Gaza destroyed a fourth mosque, forcing thousands more people to evacuate their homes, Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed reported.
“Dozens of homes were destroyed and are inhabitable,” ElSayed said.
Israel’s Chief Military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, told reporters that Israel has taken “control” of its communities following the mass incursion of Hamas fighters.
Hagari said there had been some isolated incidents on Monday morning, but that “at this stage, there is no fighting in the communities”.
Earlier, another spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Hecht, acknowledged that it was “taking more time than we expected to get things back into a defensive, security posture”.
Israeli officials said 70 additional Hamas fighters infiltrated the Be’eri kibbutz. The military has not been able to wrest Be’eri kibbutz from Hamas overnight.
The army has called up about 300,000 reservists. It said in a statement that Israel would aim to end Hamas’s rule of Gaza.
“We have never drafted so many reservists on such a scale,” Hagari said. “We are going on the offensive.”
The attackers shot dead dozens of young Israelis – media reported as many as 260 killed – at an outdoor desert dance party.
A day later, dozens of survivors were still emerging from hiding. The site was littered with wrecked and abandoned cars.
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