Israel has launched strikes on Gaza after it expanded an evacuation order for Rafah, with AFP correspondents reporting intense clashes and heavy gunfire from Israeli helicopters near Gaza City.

Witnesses said Israel had carried out strikes in Rafah near the crossing with Egypt on Saturday, and AFP images showed smoke rising over the city.

Residents piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again. Residents were told to go to the “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah.

“We don’t know where to go,” said Farid Abu Eida, who was preparing to leave Rafah, having already been displaced there from Gaza City. “There is no place left in Gaza that is safe or not overcrowded… There’s nowhere we can go.”

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said “we have eliminated dozens of terrorists in eastern Rafah” and the army claimed troops were fighting “armed terrorists” at the crossing and had found “numerous underground tunnel shafts”.