In Khan Younis, many of those taking flight on Monday were already displaced from other areas. Abu Mohammed told Reuters it was now the third time he had been forced to flee since abandoning his home in Gaza City in the north.
"Why did they eject us from our homes in Gaza (City) if they planned to kill us here?" he said.
At a home in Khan Younis that was struck overnight, flames licked the collapsed masonry and grey smoke billowed out from the rubble. A child's stuffed toy of a sheep lay in a pile of dust. Boys were picking through the wreckage. Next door, Nesrine Abdelmoty stood amid damaged furniture in the rented room where she lives with her divorced daughter and two-year-old baby.
"We were sleeping at 5 a.m. when we felt things collapse, everything went upside down," she told Reuters. "They told (people) to move from the north to Khan Younis, since the south is safer. And now, they've bombed Khan Younis. Even Khan Younis is not safe now, and even if we move to Rafah, Rafah is not safe as well. Where do they want us to go?"
This is the best summary I could come up with:
As many as 80 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people have fled their homes in an Israeli bombing campaign that has reduced much of the crowded coastal strip to a desolate wasteland.
Israel launched its assault to annihilate Gaza's ruling Hamas Islamists in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by its gunmen, who killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Tanks driving into Gaza from the border fence in the east along the road that divides Khan Younis from the city of Deir al-Balah further north have reached a flour mill halfway to the Mediterranean coast, cutting off the main north-south route, residents say.
The military released footage of troops patrolling in tanks and on foot, in fields and in badly damaged urban areas, and firing from weapons, without specifying the location in Gaza.
Israel says its evacuation orders are aimed at protecting civilians from harm, and called on international organisations to help encourage Gazans to move to the areas labelled safe on Israeli maps.
Israel's closest ally the United States has publicly called on it to do more to safeguard civilians in the southern part of Gaza than in last month's campaign in the north, especially as there are so many people already homeless there.
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