*Family mourns 17 killed in house in Rafah
* Palestinian medics say four killed on rickshaw in Rafah
* Fighters fire rockets from Rafah and other refuge zone
GAZA/TEL AVIV: Israel battled Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip's biggest cities on Thursday and said it had attacked dozens of targets, leaving Palestinians struggling to survive in a situation the United Nations described as "apocalyptic".
Gazans crammed into Rafah on the border with Egypt, heeding Israeli leaflets and messages saying that they would be safe in the city. But medics and relatives said Israeli air strikes had killed 17 people in a house there on Wednesday sheltering some of those displaced from further north.
"The house was targeted by three rockets. They targeted women and children, as you can see, and the guests who were told the south would be safe," said Bassam al Hobi, a member of the family that was hit, gesturing to bodies wrapped in white cloth, some small, lined up on the ground and surrounded by mourners.
As well as the 17 dead, three were missing and others wounded, he said. Elsewhere in Rafah, medics said four people had been killed while travelling in a rickshaw on Thursday.
Israel said fighters had fired at least one rocket from Rafah and that it had killed a number of gunmen in southern Gaza's largest city, Khan Younis, including two fighters who emerged firing from a tunnel.
Hamas' armed wing, Al Qassam Brigades, said combat was fierce after troops entered the heart of Khan Younis on Wednesday in a new phase of the war, which is now entering its third month.
Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike had killed two people in Khan Younis on Thursday morning, while in central Gaza, medics said four people had been killed in a house in Nusseirat refugee camp overnight.
Those who escape violence face an increasingly desperate struggle to survive.
Hundreds of people packed a road in central city of Deir al Balah, waiting for food outside a UN compound that had yet to open, a video posted by Ramy Abdu, founder of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, showed.
The UN Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said 1.9 million people - 85 per cent of Gaza's population - had been displaced, its shelters were four times over capacity, and there was not enough aid to meet "the overwhelming needs".
The Palestinian death toll in the eight weeks of warfare reported by Gaza medics was at 16,015, including 43 reported by one hospital on Tuesday and 73 by another on Wednesday.
Gaza's health ministry has not released overall casualty figures since Monday, and it and the UN say hundreds of people are unaccounted for under rubble.
Residents in Gaza City in the north reported all-night bombing and fierce gunbattles in Shejaia, east of the centre, and the Jabalia refugee camp further north, where Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network said 22 relatives of its Gaza correspondent Moamen Al Sharafi had been killed.
Another district, Sabra, was also bombed, locals said.
Israel said it had raided a Hamas compound in Jabalia, killing several gunmen and discovering tunnels, a training area and weapons. In Shejaia, the armed wing of Hamas-allied IJ, Al Quds Brigades, said their fighters had hit Israeli tanks.
In Khan Younis, Israeli forces had encircled the house of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday evening.
"His home may not be his castle, and he can escape, but it's only a matter of time before we get him," he said.
Israel's move into Khan Younis followed a ground incursion into Gaza City in the north to root out Hamas fighters who had attacked Israel and taken hostages on October 7 and was accompanied by some of the heaviest bombing of the war.
The surprise incursion by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns killed 1,200 people, with 240 people taken hostage, according to Israel's tally.
The Israeli military says 88 soldiers have been killed in ground incursions into Gaza that began on October 20 and that about a third of the reported Palestinian toll consisted of combatants, without saying how that estimate was reached.
In Geneva, the UN human rights chief said the situation in Gaza was "apocalyptic" with the risk that serious rights violations were being committed by Israel.
The UN has been unable to distribute aid in every part of the Gaza Strip except for the Rafah governorate for the past four days, it said in its daily humanitarian report on Thursday.
In Rafah, about 13 km south of Khan Younis, most of those displaced from elsewhere were sleeping rough as the UN had only managed to hand out a few hundred tents, the UN humanitarian office said on Wednesday.
While some aid had entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the surge in hostilities since a week-long truce collapsed on December 1 was hindering distribution, the report said.
Displaced civilians were also fleeing to the desolate area of Al Mawasi on Gaza's southern Mediterranean coast. Israel had declared the area safe but accused fighters on Thursday of firing 12 rockets from there, leaving its status unclear.
The former Bedouin village lacks shelter, food and other necessities, according to refugee organisations.
A Palestinian who fled there, Ibrahim Mahram, said five families were sharing a tent.
"We suffered from the war of cannons and escaped it to arrive at the war of starvation," he said. "We divide one tomato between all of us." Palestinian medics say Gaza's hospitals are overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies are running out.
Leaders of the Group of Seven nations, including Israel's close ally the United States, called for further humanitarian truces to address the humanitarian crisis and minimise civilian casualties.
A senior Hamas official said mediators were still exploring opportunities for a truce and reiterated its demand that Israel cease its attacks.
The UN Security Council received a UAE-drafted resolution on Wednesday demanding an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire", with a vote sought on Friday. — Reuters
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