Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip overnight, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to travel to Egypt for more talks aimed at containing Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, AFP reports.

The diplomat was set to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo, a day after talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmud Abbas, who “committed” to reforming the body to potentially reunite Gaza and the occupied West Bank under its leadership, Blinken said.

Gaza’s press office said that 62 people had been killed in strikes overnight, including around Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Younis.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in his evening briefing the night before that forces were continuing “to act decisively above and below ground” in the area.

Earlier in the day, the army said that troops east of the city had found “tunnel shafts, tunnel routes, and numerous weapons and materials”, and killed “dozens of terrorists”.

In Deir al-Balah, also in central Gaza, people wounded in a strike at a nearby school were brought to the Al-Aqsa hospital.

“There are injured people at the school since last night, no cars or ambulances are reaching it — nothing,” Ramadan Darwit told AFP at the hospital.

During a visit with troops in central Gaza, Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi called it a “complex battlefield”.

“The fighting is […] below ground, it’s above ground, and (against) an enemy that prepared its defences over a very long period of time in a very organised way. There is a population here, many houses — a very, very complex battlefield,” he said.