Hamas representatives say 29 people have been killed in an Israeli strike that hit tents housing displaced families in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis.

Palestinian officials say an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip’s south has killed dozens while advancing tanks in Gaza City forced residents to flee under fire as Israel stepped up its offensive against Hamas.

The air strike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 29, most of them were women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israeli strikes on central Gaza areas killed 60 Palestinians and wounded dozens of others on Tuesday.

Residents said Israeli tanks that pushed into the Tēl al-Hawa, Shejaia and Sabra neighbourhoods of Gaza City shelled roads and buildings, forcing them to flee their homes.

This was followed by Israeli military orders to evacuate several districts in eastern and western Gaza City posted on social media, which included these neighbourhoods.

“We hold the occupation and the US administration responsible for the horrifying massacres against civilians,” Thawabta said in a statement.

On Gaza City’s front lines, the armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad said their fighters battled Israeli forces with machine guns, mortar fire and anti-tank missiles and killed and wounded Israeli soldiers.

Israel’s military did not comment on casualties but said its soldiers were engaged in close-quarter combat with militants, had taken more than 150 fighters out of action in the last week and destroyed booby-trapped buildings and explosives.

US officials in Gaza to push for ceasefire with Israel and Hamas

The latest fighting has unfolded as senior US officials were in the region to push for a ceasefire after Hamas made concessions last week.

But Israel’s renewed campaign threatened talks at a crucial time and could bring negotiations “back to square one,” Hamas quoted leader Ismail Haniyeh as saying.

Video on social media showed families packed onto donkey carts and in the backs of trucks piled with mattresses and other belongings making their way through Gaza City’s streets to flee areas under Israeli evacuation orders.

“Gaza City is being wiped out. This is what is happening. Israel is forcing us to leave homes under fire,” Um Tamer, a mother of seven, told Reuters via a chat app.

She said it was the seventh time her family had fled their house in Gaza City, in the north of the enclave and one of Israel’s first targets at the start of the war in October.

“We can’t take it anymore, enough of death and humiliation. End the war now,” she said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said all of its medical clinics were out of service in Gaza City due to the Israeli orders that have driven thousands of people westward towards the Mediterranean and to the south.

Across Gaza, more than 40 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday in Israeli air strikes on Gaza City in the north, al-Bureij, Deir al-Balah and al-Nuseirat in central Gaza and Rafah in the south, according to medics.

The total Palestinian death toll in the nine-month-long Israeli military offensive reached 38,243, Gaza health officials said in their latest update.

The war erupted when militants led by Hamas infiltrated southern Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people and taking about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Hopes among Gazans of a pause in the fighting had revived after Hamas last week accepted a key part of a US ceasefire proposal.

Qatari and Egyptian mediators, backed by the United States, have accelerated efforts this week and talks will resume in Doha on Wednesday, Egypt’s state-affiliated media said.