"They threw leaflets at us, ordering us to evacuate", Reem Abu Hayya told AFP, referring to the flyers that Israeli forces drop from planes to order the evacuation of areas ahead of a military assault.

The Khan Younis area had already seen evacuation orders in late July, and heavy Israeli incursions that devastated the area earlier this year.

"We don't know where we're going, and we have sick and disabled people with us. Where can we go?" Abu Hayya asked AFP as she stood on the street in front of a building reduced to a pile of rebar and broken concrete.

In a besieged territory that Israel has consistently bombed over the past 10 months and where an Israeli siege has made supplies enter with great difficulty, people carried all they could as they fled on Thursday.

AFP journalists saw one young man carrying planks of wood loosely tied in bundles, to be used as shelter structure or fuel in the near future.

With petrol scarce, only the most fortunate drove, often with mattresses piled high on the car roof. The vast majority walked. They carried their belongings in plastic and garbage bags, on donkey-pulled carts, bikes, strollers or wheelchairs.

By dusk, streets of Khan Younis stood completely deserted and eerily quiet, AFP journalists reported. Only the ruins of buildings damaged in earlier Israeli strikes still stood.

The flyers dropped Thursday ordered residents to leave eastern towns of Khan Younis governorate including Al-Salqa, Al-Qarara, Bani Suheila, and neighbourhoods in the city of Khan Younis, warning that the Israeli army "will act forcefully" in these areas.

Late last month Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on social media site X that only "14 percent of areas in Gaza" were not subject to evacuation orders.

On Friday, the Israeli army said it had launched a new operation in Khan Younis, claiming the aim was to eliminate Palestinian fighter cells and infrastructure.

This is not the first time the Israeli army has targeted Khan Younis, an area crowded with displaced civilians, under similar justifications.

'We are exhausted'
 

The Israeli military has often returned to areas in Gaza where it has previously carried out major assaults, killing scores of Palestinians.

That says something about Gaza, where Israel's relentless bombardment and ground invasion have killed at least 39,699 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's health ministry.

Mohammad al-Farra, from Sheikh Nasser in the east of Khan Younis, expressed frustration at the several displacements his family has lived through.

"We were the first to return to our home... as soon as the military operation in our area ended, to escape the heat, the displacement, and the hardship", the 46-year-old told AFP.

"Then the occupation returned to drive us out again, making us suffer the tragedy multiple times over", he said, referring to Israel.

"We are exhausted. The war must end immediately so that we can feel human again, even just a little".

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.