Israeli tanks advanced deep into a town in the central Gaza Strip on Thursday after days of relentless bombardment that forced tens of thousands of already displaced Palestinian families to flee in a new exodus.
A Palestinian journalist posted pictures of Israeli tanks near a mosque in a built-up area of Bureij, the armored contingent having apparently advanced from orchards on the eastern outskirts.
Further south, Israeli forces struck the area around a hospital in the heart of Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip's main southern city, where residents feared a new ground push into territory crowded with families made homeless in 12 weeks of war, Reuters reported.
Palestinian health authorities said 210 people were confirmed killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, raising the toll of Palestinians killed in the war so far to 21,320 - nearly 1% of Gaza's population. Thousands more dead are feared to be buried or lost in the ruins.
The main focus of fighting is now in central areas south of the wetlands that bisect the narrow coastal strip, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out over the past several days as their tanks close in.
Tens of thousands of people fleeing the densely packed Nusseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts were heading south or west on Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.
"Over 150,000 people - young children, women carrying babies, people with disabilities & the elderly - have nowhere to go," the main UN organization operating in Gaza, UNRWA, said in a social media post.
The eastern part of Bureij was a theater of heavy fighting on Thursday morning, with Israeli tanks thrusting in from the north and east, residents and Hamas fighters said.
