Israel has repeatedly urged civilians in northern Gaza to move south for their safety, but strikes have also hit southern areas and evacuation routes, Lynn Hastings, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, has said.

According to AFP, around 45 per cent of all housing in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN, citing local authorities, and satellite images show vast swathes of destruction.

Rahma Saqallah fled south with her family, heeding Israeli warnings. But after strikes killed her husband and three of her children, she was heading back home.

“Wherever we go, we will die,” she told AFP, as she prepared to leave the southern city of Khan Yunis to return to Gaza City with her surviving child.“They told us to leave for the south and then they killed us (here).”