Israeli strikes across the southern Gaza Strip killed at least 19 Palestinians overnight into Sunday, including a senior Hamas political leader and several women and children.
The military ordered people to evacuate from part of the city of Rafah on the border with Egypt.
The military said it would soon operate against militants in the already heavily destroyed Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah and ordered people to evacuate on foot along a single route to Mawasi, a sprawling area of squalid tent camps.
Palestinians have been ordered to evacuate the region again after ceasefire talks collapsed (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP)
It was not immediately clear if the order signalled a renewed ground operation.
Israel launched a major offensive in Rafah in May when it captured a strategic corridor along the border with Egypt and a key crossing.
Palestinians could be seen walking along a dirt road and carrying their belongings in their arms, a recurring scene in a war that has forced most of Gaza’s population to flee, often multiple times.
“It’s displacement under fire,” said Mustafa Gaber, a local journalist who left Tel al-Sultan with his family.
In a video call, he said hundreds of people were fleeing as tank and drone fire echoed nearby.
“There are wounded people among us. The situation is very difficult,” he said.
Colonel Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic language spokesman, had earlier warned people to flee.
“Remaining in camps, tents, or houses in Tel al-Sultan or walking on any other route endangers your lives,” he said in a statement.
Hamas said that Salah Bardawil, a member of its political bureau and the Palestinian parliament, was killed in a strike in Mawasi that also killed his wife.
Israel renewed strikes on Gaza, killing 19 people including a senior Hamas leader (Jehad Alshrafi/AP)
Bardawil was a well-known member of the group’s political wing who gave media interviews over the years.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are allied with Hamas, meanwhile launched another missile at Israel, setting off air raid sirens.
The Israeli military said the projectile was intercepted, and there were no reports of casualties or damage.
The ceasefire that took hold in January paused 15 months of heavy fighting ignited by Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack into Israel.
Twenty-five Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others were released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return to what remains of their homes, and there was a surge in humanitarian aid.
The sides were supposed to begin negotiations in early February on the next phase of the truce, in which Hamas was to release the remaining 59 hostages — 35 of whom are believed to be dead — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.
Those talks never began, and Israel backed out of the ceasefire agreement after Hamas refused Israeli and US-backed proposals to release more hostages ahead of any talks on a lasting truce.