AP PHOTOS: As northern Gaza becomes encircled, immense human suffering shows no sign of easing

In a week when Israel declared it had seized control of northern Gaza, the war and the immense human suffering in the tiny territory showed no sign of easing.

A young mother in tears clings to her injured children — wounded in an Israeli airstrike — at a hospital in Khan Younis. Many who fled to the city in southern Gaza, escaping intense bombardment in the north, had hoped they would be safe there.

But refugees and residents are still dying daily in large numbers. Funeral services are held in streets strewn with debris after the bodies are pulled out of collapsed apartment blocks.

The human cost of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its sixth week, was captured by photographers for The Associated Press.

A young Palestinian boy, his injured arm in a sling, looks down at another small child, its body wrapped in a white cloth, knotted above the head and below the feet, before burial.

Israeli parents standing at the freshly dug graves of their children, killed in the war or in captivity at the hands of Hamas militants, buckle under the weight of their sorrow and are held up by other members of the grieving family.

Rallies in world capitals, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, grew in size and anger as the war raged on. Israeli tanks speeding across the border kick up clouds of dust. Airstrikes aimed at bombing Hamas out of Gaza City pulverize buildings and entire city blocks.

The displaced continued, meanwhile, to flee south, one man carrying his infant child with blankets stacked over his head on top of a backpack.

After finding a place to sleep, exhausted families huddle around large steaming pots and hold out plastic bowls at soup kitchens. Others survive on pieces of stale flatbread, sprinkled with dry herbs, hoping that promises of more international aid will materialize soon.

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Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war