More than 80,000 people have fled the southern Gaza city of Rafah since Monday, the UN says, as Israeli tanks reportedly mass close to built-up areas amid constant bombardment.
Palestinian armed groups have stated their aim to target Israeli troops situated to the east.
Israel’s military has announced its ground forces’ engagement in “targeted activity” in eastern Rafah.
Additionally, the UN has raised concerns about dwindling food and fuel supplies due to the lack of aid reaching through nearby crossings.
At the beginning of their operation, Israeli troops seized control and shut down the Rafah crossing with Egypt, while the UN deemed it unsafe for its personnel and vehicles to access the recently reopened Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.
This occurred alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissing a warning from the US president regarding the cessation of weapon supplies should Israel initiate a significant assault on “population centers” in Rafah. Netanyahu asserted Israel’s capability to sustain itself independently if required.
After seven months of war in Gaza, Israel has insisted victory is impossible without taking the city and eliminating the last remaining Hamas battalions.
But with more than a million displaced Palestinians sheltering there, the UN and Western powers have warned that an all-out assault could lead to mass civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe.
Residents and aid workers in Rafah said the sound of artillery and air strikes was constant on Thursday.
Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told the BBC in the afternoon that she was at a health facility in the west and could “hear and feel the bombardment coming closer”.
“The building is shaking on a frequent basis. There is this constant buzzing of drones,” she said. “The fear and nervousness that people [in Rafah] have had, has now become terror.”
Palestinian media said two people were killed on Thursday afternoon in an Israeli air strike in the al-Jneineh neighbourhood – one of the eastern areas which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered residents to evacuate before beginning its ground operation began on Monday night.
Another three people were reportedly killed in an air strike in the nearby Brazil neighbourhood, which is not in the evacuation zone but is next to the Egyptian border.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) – which are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the US and other countries – said they were targeting Israeli forces on the eastern outskirts with mortars and anti-tank missiles.
Hamas also said it had blown up a booby-trapped tunnel east of Rafah underneath three Israeli military vehicles. The IDF said three of its soldiers were moderately wounded as a result of the explosion.
Overnight, at least five people were reportedly killed when a family’s home in the western Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood was hit in an Israeli strike. They included three children, one of them a one-year-old infant, medics said.
The IDF said on Wednesday evening that soldiers had been carrying out “targeted operations on the terrorist infrastructure surrounding the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing and conducted operational raids on suspicious buildings in the area”, and that about 30 “terrorists” had been eliminated. It also said Israeli aircraft had struck targets in support of the troops.