Tehran, Sept. 29 -- The bombardment of Gaza City intensified on Monday even as Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House for talks with Donald Trump over a U.S.-drafted framework to end the war. For families still pinned between broken stairwells and blasted courtyards in the north, the Washington motorcades felt like theater in another language; the only cues that mattered were the pitch of drones above al-Shifa and the percussive thud that sends entire stairwells running for the few ground floors that have not already caved in.

By mid-afternoon local time, medics said dozens had been killed since dawn, most in and around Gaza City. Health officials' cumulative death ledger kept moving in a single direction, toward a total that woul...