Israel’s military has targeted and killed an Al Jazeera correspondent and others with an airstrike as they sheltered outside a Gaza City hospital.

Prominent reporter Anas al-Sharif and six other journalists were killed when Israel targeted a tent used by media, the broadcaster said.

Officials accused Anas al-Sharif of being a Hamas operative posing as a reporter. Al Jazeera says he and the other four victims all worked for the network.

Israel's war cabinet voted on Monday to occupy Gaza City, a move condemned at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later that day. On Tuesday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was "at the beginning of a new state of combat".

Israeli planes and tanks kept bombarding eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people, witnesses and medics said on Tuesday, with Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya due in Cairo for talks to revive a U.

Israel's new offensive in Gaza City could take weeks to start, leaving the door open for a ceasefire, officials say, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it would get underway "fairly quickly" and end the war with Hamas' defeat.