At least 91 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday after Israel resumed bombing and ground operations, the enclave's health ministry said.
After two months of relative peace, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives after Israel effectively abandoned a ceasefire, launching a new all-out air and ground campaign.
Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on residential neighbourhoods, ordering people out of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns in the north, the Shejaia district in Gaza City and towns on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis in the south.
"War is back, displacement and death are back, will we survive this round?" said Samed Sami, 29, who fled Shejaia to put up a tent for his family in a camp on open ground.
A day after sending tanks into central Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had also begun conducting ground operations in the north of the enclave, along the coastal route in Beit Lahiya.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, which had not retaliated during the first 48 hours of the renewed Israeli assault, said its fighters fired rockets into Israel.
The Israeli military said sirens sounded in the centre of the country after projectiles were launched from Gaza. Palestinian medics said Israeli strikes targeted several houses in northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.
With talks failing to extend the ceasefire, the military resumed its air assaults on Gaza with a massive bombing campaign on Tuesday before sending soldiers in the day after.
It said on Thursday that its forces had been engaged for the past 24 hours in what it described as an operation to expand a buffer zone separating the northern and southern halves of Gaza, known as the Netzarim corridor.
Israel ordered residents to stay away from the Salahuddin road, the main north-south route, and said they should travel along the coast instead.
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