Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas last month. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land.

The largest contiguous area the army controls is around the Gaza border, where the military has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups. This military buffer zone has doubled in size in recent weeks.

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 44 people on Sunday as Israel's prime minister vowed a "strong response" to a rare salvo of rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled territory.

Talks on Monday between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump are expected to be dominated by Washington's shock tariffs on Israel and escalating tensions with Iran.

Netanyahu becomes the first foreign leader to meet with Trump in the U.S. capital since the president unveiled sweeping levies on multiple countries in his "Liberation Day" announcement on Wednesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said he would hold a trilateral summit on the situation in Gaza with Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Israel has pushed to seize territory in Gaza since the collapse of a short-lived truce in its war with Hamas, in what it has called a strategy to force the militants to free hostages still in captivity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, discussing issues including tariffs and the "Iranian threat," his office said Saturday.

The meeting will take place on Monday, a White House official said on condition of anonymity.

Scores of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria's northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.

The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.

Israeli strikes killed more than a dozen people in the Gaza Strip early Friday, as Israel sent more ground troops into the Palestinian territory to ramp up its offensive against Hamas.

At least 17 people, some from the same family, were killed after an airstrike hit the southern city of Khan Younis, according to hospital staff. Hours later, people were still searching through the rubble, looking for survivors.

The Israeli army said Friday that it shot and killed a Palestinian who threw stones at troops near the occupied West Bank village of Husan, whose mayor told AFP the boy was 17.

The army said that on Thursday evening "several terrorists hurled rocks toward Road 375 adjacent to Husan... Soldiers who were operating in the area responded with fire toward the terrorists, eliminated one terrorist and hit an additional terrorist".

Israeli aircraft carried out two strikes on military targets near Damascus late Thursday, war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Humans Rights said.

"Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes on military positions and posts" in the vicinity of Al-Kiswah and Al-Muqaylibah outside Damascus, the Observatory said, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli military announced the launch of a new ground offensive in Gaza City on Friday to expand the security zone it has established in the Palestinian territory.

Israel has pushed since the collapse of a short-lived truce in the war with Hamas to seize territory in Gaza in what it has called a strategy to force the militants to free hostages still in captivity.