Israel has struck Gaza and troops were battling fighters several areas of the Palestinian territory after an Israeli evacuation order sent hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing from Rafah, AFP reports.

AFP correspondents, witnesses and medics said Israeli airstrikes pounded parts of northern, central and southern Gaza during the night and into Sunday morning.

In Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city which sits on the Egyptian border, the Kuwaiti hospital said on Sunday it had received the bodies of “18 martyrs” killed in Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported at least two fatalities, a father and son, both doctors, in a strike on Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.