Netanyahu says Israel will ‘deepen fighting’ as death toll mounts

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli troops fighting in the Gaza Strip on Monday, vowing to stay the course of the war even with the death toll mounting.

His trip came hours after Gazan health officials reported that a devastating overnight strike on a crowded neighborhood had killed dozens.

It was the Israeli leader’s second known visit to Gaza since the war began. Mr. Netanyahu has been facing increasing pressure from the United States to lower the intensity of the war, but he said on Monday that Israel would “deepen” the fighting in coming days.

The strike late Sunday in central Gaza underscored the risk to civilians as fighting intensifies. Gazans were mourning the victims in the neighborhood, Al Maghazi, where many who have fled fighting in other parts of the enclave have sought shelter.

The Gaza Health Ministry initially said 70 people had died in Sunday’s attacks on Al Maghazi, with many others still buried. But the difficulty of reaching residents in Gaza, where electricity shortages and communications blackouts have frequently obscured the picture of the war’s fallout, meant the details were blurry.

Gazan Health Ministry officials blamed Israeli airstrikes for the deadly attack on Al Maghazi. Israel’s military said Monday it was reviewing the episode.

As the Gazan death toll has soared and civilians have been pushed into smaller and smaller corners of the enclave, international calls for a cease-fire have grown. While Mr. Netanyahu’s government has said it is planning for a new phase of the fighting, the Israeli leader has repeatedly insisted that his military will keep up the war in Gaza until all of its goals are achieved.

“We’re not stopping, we are continuing to fight and are deepening the fighting in the coming days,” he said in a statement released by his Likud party on Monday, adding that “this will be a long battle, and it is not close to ending.”