RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel launched heavy attacks in the central and southern Gaza Strip overnight and into Wednesday, after expanding its offensive against Hamas to more areas where the military said the Palestinians would attack early in the war , they should seek protection.

Residents reported heavy bombings in the established Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, in the southern town of Khan Younis and in the southern city of Rafah, areas where tens of thousands sought refuge while large parts of the northern Gaza Strip were reduced to rubble.

“It was a night of hell. We have not seen such bombings since the beginning of the war,” said Rami Abu Mosab from the Bureij camp, where he has sought refuge since fleeing his home in the north of the Gaza Strip.

He said warplanes flew overhead and gunfire and explosions echoed from the eastern edge of the camp – which, like others in Gaza, houses refugees from the 1948 war over the creation of Israel and their descendants and now resembles other densely populated neighborhoods.

A house near Abu Mosab’s accommodation was hit, but no one could reach the area, he said. Cell phone and internet service was down for several hours before being gradually restored on Wednesday. This was the latest of several such failures that have complicated rescue efforts.

With large swaths of northern Gaza flattened, Palestinians fear a similar fate awaits other areas, including Khan Younis, where Israeli forces launched ground operations in early December, and a cluster of constructed refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip, where the focus is moved this week.

The military’s latest evacuation orders are for an area in central Gaza that was home to nearly 90,000 people before the war and is now home to more than 61,000 displaced people, mostly from the north, according to the U.N. humanitarian office.

Israel has said the bombing and ground offensive were necessary to crush Hamas and prevent a repeat of its Oct. 7 attack, in which militants broke through Israel’s formidable defenses and killed about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapped about 240 . An estimated 129 remain in captivity after dozens were released.

Israel said it would take “many months” to achieve its goals.

Death, displacement and hunger

His offensive is already one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, more than 21,100 Palestinians, most of them women and children, including nearly 200 people, were killed in the past 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry. The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

In Khan Younis, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Israel had attacked a residential building next to Al-Amal Hospital, which is run by the emergency services. Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Kidra said at least 20 people were killed and dozens more injured, with the death toll likely to rise.

About 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes and crammed into smaller and smaller areas in recent weeks as the ground offensive expanded. For many Palestinians, the exodus is reminiscent of the mass expulsion of 1948, which they refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe.

U.N. officials say a quarter of the territory’s population is starving under the Israeli siege, which is preventing access to food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies. Last week, the UN Security Council called for an immediate acceleration of aid deliveries, but there was little sign of change.

U.S. demands for Israel to curb civilian casualties and international pressure for a ceasefire also had little effect.

Israel blames Hamas for the high number of civilian deaths in Gaza because the militants operate in densely populated residential areas. The military says it has killed thousands of militants without providing evidence and that 164 of its soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive began.

Strikes in Lebanon, West Bank

The war has ignited other fronts across the Middle East.

Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group have engaged in repeated gun battles along the border. An Israeli attack on a family’s home overnight killed a Hezbollah fighter, his brother and sister-in-law said, local officials and state media said on Wednesday. Another family member was injured.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank killed at least six Palestinians in a night raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp that had been set up. More than 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the war began, mostly in clashes with Israeli forces during raids and protests.

As fears of a wider conflict grow, the US, Qatar and Egypt are working on a new agreement to release more hostages. US President Joe Biden spoke to the ruling Emir of Qatar on Tuesday.

Hamas says no more hostages will be released until Israel ends the war and that it will trade the remaining prisoners for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants. Israel has rejected both demands.

Egypt has put forward a proposal to end the war that would include releasing all hostages held in Gaza and all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, as well as forming a government of Palestinian technocrats to govern Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

It was received coolly by both sides, but neither rejected it outright.

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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip and Magdy from Cairo.

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