Palestinians stream into a southern Gaza town as Israel expands its offensive in the centre

Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into an already crowded town at the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations, fleeing Israel's bombardment of the centre of the strip, where hospital officials said dozens were killed Friday.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into an already crowded town at the southernmost end of Gaza in recent days, according to the United Nations, fleeing Israel's bombardment of the centre of the strip, where hospital officials said dozens were killed Friday.

Israel's unprecedented air and ground offensive against Hamas has displaced some 85 per cent of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million residents, sending swells of people seeking shelter in Israeli-designated safe areas that the military has nevertheless also bombed. That has left Palestinians with a harrowing sense that nowhere is safe in the tiny enclave.

People arrived in Rafah in trucks, in carts and on foot. Those who haven't found space in the already overwhelmed shelters have built tents on the roadsides.

"People are using any empty space to build shacks," said Juliette Touma, director of communications at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. "Some are sleeping in their cars, and others are sleeping in the open."

Israel's widening campaign, which has already flattened much of the north, is now focused on the urban refugee camps of Bureij, Nuseirat and Maghazi in central Gaza, where Israeli warplanes and artillery have leveled buildings.

But fighting has not abated in the north, and the city of Khan Younis in the south, where Israel believes Hamas' leaders are hiding, is also a smoldering battleground. Militants have continued to fire rockets, mostly at Israel's south.

The war has already killed over 21,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and sparked a humanitarian crisis that has left a quarter of Gaza's population starving.