GAZA, Oct 27 (Agencies): A Hamas official tied the release of hostages held in Gaza to a ceasefire in Israel's bombardment of the enclave, launched after a deadly rampage by Hamas militants into southern Israel nearly three weeks ago.
Israel says it is preparing a ground invasion, but has been urged by the US and Arab countries to delay an operation that would multiply the number of civilian casualties in the densely populated coastal strip and might ignite a wider conflict.
Two US fighter jets struck weapons and ammunition facilities in Syria on Friday in retaliation for attacks on US forces by Iranian-backed militias since the Gaza war erupted.
An opinion poll published on Friday suggested almost half of Israelis now wanted to hold off on a ground invasion out of fears for at least 224 hostages reported to be held there.
The top UN official providing aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza says people there "feel shunned, alienated and abandoned."
Aid trucks that have been allowed in through an Egyptian crossing point so far have provided only "crumbs", says UNRWA chief Phillippe Lazzarini
Asked by the BBC, he also denied Hamas had stolen UN fuel; Israel has blocked fuel supplies from entering but accuses Hamas of stockpiling it.
Earlier Israel said it had conducted targeted raids in the central area of the Gaza Strip and struck dozens of Hamas targets.
The Israel Defense Forces said Shadi Barud, the deputy head of Hamas's intelligence arm, was killed in an operation.
The number of hostages kidnapped from Israel and held by Hamas in Gaza has also been updated to 229.
More than 1,400 people were killed in the initial attacks on Israel by Hamas on 7 October
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 7,000 people have been killed there - 40% of whom are children - and the WHO says it believes the figures are reliable.
Meanwhile, with an economy in ruins and a crumbling state, Lebanon can ill afford another war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Iran-backed Hezbollah knows this and is keeping Lebanon's crises in mind as it plots the next steps in the conflict with Israel, sources say.
As the war between Israel and Hezbollah's Palestinian ally Hamas reverberates across the Middle East, the risk of war between Hezbollah and Israel remains higher than at any point since their last big conflict in 2006.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted a member of a Hamas delegation visiting Moscow as saying time was needed to locate all those who had been abducted by various Palestinian factions in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7.
"They seized dozens of people, most of them civilians, and we need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and then release them," Abu Hamid said.
He said Hamas, which has freed four hostages so far, had made clear it intended to release "civilian prisoners".
But this required a "calm environment", he said, repeating an assertion that Israeli bombing had already killed 50 of those held.
Palestinian militants clashed with Israeli troops in at least two areas inside the Gaza Strip, the latest of several small-scale incursions, Hamas-affiliated media reported, though the Israeli military did not immediately confirm the reports.
Residents of central Gaza said they had heard an apparent exchange of fire as well as heavy shelling and air strikes along the border, with Israeli planes dropping flares and bombs.
Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades said Israeli forces had attempted to land on a beach at the southern end of the Strip.
Israel said its fighter jets had struck three senior Hamas operatives who played significant roles in the Oct. 7 attack, though there was no announcement by Hamas.
