Gaza death toll mounts amid air, ground attacks

At least 91 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday after Israel resumed bombing and ground operations, the enclave's health ministry said, effectively ditching a two-month-old ceasefire.

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After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives after Israel effectively abandoned a ceasefire, launching a new all-out air and ground campaign against Gaza’s dominant Palestinian group Hamas.

The Israeli military says it has begun ground operations in a neighbourhood in Gaza’s Rafah.

Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on residential neighbourhoods, ordering people out of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns in the north, the Shejaia district in Gaza City and towns on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis in the south.

"War is back, displacement and death are back, will we survive this round?" said Samed Sami, 29, who fled Shejaia to put up a tent for his family in a camp on open ground.

A day after sending tanks into central Gaza, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had also begun conducting ground operations in the north of the densely populated enclave, along the coastal route in Beit Lahiya.

Israel's military said on Thursday it had killed the head of Hamas's internal security agency in an air strike on the Gaza Strip, the latest official targeted in recent days.