Israel-Gaza updates: IDF says 3,500 'terror targets' hammered in 10 days

Editor's note: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

President Joe Biden has blamed Hamas' refusal to release civilian female hostages for the end of a temporary cease-fire and called reports of women allegedly sexually assaulted by Hamas "appalling."

"We had a report in the earliest days that Hamas used rape to terrorize women and girls during the attack on October the 7th in Israel," Biden said, according to pool reports of his remarks Tuesday at a closed-door fundraiser.

"Over the past few weeks, survivors and witnesses of the attacks have shared the horrific accounts of unimaginable cruelty," he said. "Reports of women raped -- repeatedly raped -- and their bodies being mutilated while still alive -- of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them. It is appalling."

It's on all of us -- government, international organizations, civil society and businesses -- to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation -- without equivocation, without exception," Biden said.

-ABC News' Libby Cathey

The Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday morning that its aircraft had bombed "approximately 250 terror targets in the Gaza Strip" over the last day amid what it described as "intensive battles."

"During these strikes, terrorists from the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations were eliminated, and a number of terrorist infrastructure were destroyed," the IDF said in a statement.

Israeli soldiers also located "one of the largest weapons depots" in Gaza "near a clinic and a school" in the northern part of the Hamas-controlled territory, according to the IDF.

"The depot contained hundreds of RPG missiles and launchers of various types, dozens of anti-tank missiles, dozens of explosive devices, long-range missiles aimed at central Israel, dozens of grenades and UAVs," the IDF added. "All of the terrorist infrastructure was found close to civilian buildings in the heart of a civilian population. This is additional proof of Hamas' cynical use of the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields."

Hamas has denied Israel's claims that it deliberately shelters behind civilians in Gaza.

-ABC News' Morgan Winsor

The United States believes eight Americans are still being held hostage by militants in the war-torn Gaza Strip, according to White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

"We think there's about eight hostages that are Americans. We know of at least one woman in that group," Kirby told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on "Good Morning America."

"We're doing everything we can to try to get them released," he continued. "We're constantly engaged with our partners in the region to try to get this humanitarian pause back in place, so that the flow of hostages can renew."

Although a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Gaza's militant rulers, Hamas, ended last week, the U.S. is "still flowing in humanitarian assistance" to civilians in Gaza, according to Kirby.

"And we're trying to get it up to the level that it was during the pause," he noted.

When asked about what Israel's "endgame" might be in its war against Hamas as Israeli troops expand their offensive across all of Gaza, Kirby said: "That's really something for the Israeli's to speak to."

"We obviously want to see Hamas eliminated as a threat to the Israeli people," he added. "That hasn't been achieved yet. They're going after the leadership as best they can. They believe they need to operate in the south. We've told them you know we’ll continue to support their military operations but we want to make sure that as they do that they're factoring in those innocent civilian lives as much as possible."

-ABC News' Morgan Winsor

Al-Awda Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is "besieged" by Israeli forces, a spokesperson said Wednesday.

There are currently 95 employees and 38 patients inside the hospital in the city of Jabalia, north of Gaza City, according to the spokesperson.

Just four hospitals remain operational in the north, according to the Gaza's Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

-ABC News' Nasser Atta and Morgan Winsor