HAMAS offered today to support a “national, non-partisan” government to take over in Gaza once the Israeli military stops laying waste to the Palestinian territory.

Political bureau member Husam Badran said the group had “proposed that a government of national, non-partisan competencies take over the administration of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank after the war.”

This came as Israeli forces left a trail of dead bodies and destruction as they withdrew from parts of Gaza City.

A report from the Palestinian Information Centre, a Hamas-affiliated news outlet, quoted Mr Badran as saying that “managing the Gaza Strip after the war is an internal Palestinian matter and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties.”

Referring to Israel and its latest assault on Gaza City, he added: “We call on the international community to put pressure on the party obstructing the negotiations and force it to stop the aggression against Gaza.”

Harrowing videos posted on social media by the Palestinian Information Centre reveal the widespread death and destruction left behind by Israeli troops in Gaza City’s western districts.

Decomposed bodies were shown on the streets of Tal al-Hawa, with rubble piled high on both sides.

Entire blocks appeared to have been levelled, with other buildings partly destroyed.

Most of the people killed appeared to be women and children, according to local Palestinian sources.

Emergency rescue crews eventually managed to retrieve 30 bodies from the area.

Fares Afaneh, an ambulance and emergency official in the northern Gaza Strip, said: “The Israeli army partially withdrew from the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza City and we found the bodies of 30 martyrs from the area of al-Sina’a Street and the Tal al-Hawa area.

“Most of the bodies of the martyrs are decomposed due to the inability of ambulance crews to reach them earlier.

“We transferred a number of injured people, but there are large numbers of martyrs still under the rubble.”

Reporting from Deir el-Balah in the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud said that the Israel military had heavily bombed the area “during nighttime, when people were still inside these residential buildings. Many of these bodies are still in the streets or trapped inside.”

He added: “All of this happened while, at the same time, the air force carried out relentless attacks in Nuseirat in the central part of the Gaza Strip, as well as the eastern part of Khan Younis.”

Khan Younis had previously been declared a safe zone, so thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the area.