Israeli forces have also stepped up their attacks against central Gaza, and tanks have moved deeper both from the north and south into the small territory.
The escalation comes a day after Israel and Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon after more than a year of clashes. Hezbollah is allied with Hamas in Gaza, and many Palestinians hope the Israelis can make a similar agreement here.
– We are living in a real-life horror film, the situation is indescribable. The Israeli bombing does not stop, either from the air or the ground, says Umm Ahmada Lubbad (52) from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza to the AFP news agency.
On October 6, Israel launched a massive air and ground offensive against Jabalia and then Beit Lahia – vowing to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
– Worse day by day
Lubbad says she is afraid to leave her home, but that she will do so if the Israeli army orders her to evacuate.
– We don’t quite know where to go, she says on the phone to AFP on Thursday.
Abu Muhammad Al-Madhoun, who has fled from Jabalia to central Gaza, says the situation is catastrophic.
– It gets worse every day. The bombing does not stop, he says.
Hoping for a truce
Also further south, Palestinians yearn for a break from the almost 14-month-long war.
– I only hope that a ceasefire will come as it did in Lebanon. I just want my children to see my land, my house, see what they did to us. I want to live in safety, says Amal Abu Hmeid in the schoolyard of a school converted into a refugee reception center in Khan Younis in the south of Gaza.
She is forced to flee, like almost 2 million other Palestinians in Gaza.
Not ready to end the war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he is open to a ceasefire in parts of Gaza, but is not ready to end the war against Hamas.
– I am not going to let the counterpart in Gaza rearm up again, so the goal in the north is different than in the south. But my answer is clear: I am ready for a ceasefire in southern Gaza, which I believe can bring the hostages home, says Netanyahu.
70 percent women and children
At least 44,330 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli attacks in Gaza, of which 48 in the last 24 hours, 37 of them on Thursday, according to the health authorities. At least 70 percent of those killed are women and children, according to the UN.
Six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and another location near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya in the north, while four others were killed in shelling on a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, health sources told Reuters .
In Nuseirat, one of the eight old and established refugee camps in Gaza, a series of airstrikes were carried out against a block of several floors and roads around a mosque. At least eleven people were killed in these attacks, according to sources at the Al-Awda hospital in the camp.
Attack on tent camp
Later on Thursday, at least five people were killed and several wounded in an Israeli airstrike near a tent camp east of Khan Younis, health personnel said.
The Israeli military tells Reuters that its forces continue to “attack terrorist targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip”.
In Rafah, in the far south near the border with Egypt, tanks penetrated deeper into the northwestern part of the city on Thursday, residents say.
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