Tel Aviv [Israel], December 29: Israeli tanks thrust deep into a town in the central Gaza Strip after days of relentless bombardment that forced tens of thousands of already displaced Palestinian families to flee in a new exodus.
A Palestinian journalist posted pictures of Israeli tanks near a mosque in a built-up area of Bureij, the armoured contingent having apparently advanced from orchards on the eastern outskirts.
Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli missile strike on a house in northeastern Maghazi camp in central Gaza, health officials said.
Further south Israeli forces hit the area around a hospital in the heart of Khan Younis, Gaza's main southern city, where residents feared a new ground push into territory crowded with families made homeless in 12 weeks of an Israel-Hamas war.
In one of Israel's latest deadly airstrikes, 20 Palestinians were killed and 55 wounded in Rafah, a major town near the southern border with Egypt, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra said. Their bombed building was housing displaced civilians, according to local medics and residents.
Over the course of the war, the Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but it accuses Hamas of operating in densely populated areas and using civilians as human shields, a charge the group denies.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
