According to officials from the Hamas-run health ministry, 135 people were killed in Israeli strikes over the course of the previous day, including ten residents of a Rafah home providing refuge to two displaced families.
The population of the southern Gaza city has surged to well over a million as those who have been displaced from other parts of Gaza seek refuge there.
The reports were being investigated, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Additionally, rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza.
Samir Qeshta, a resident of Rafah, told AFP that while he and his wife were away, an Israeli bombardment "completely destroyed" their home.
"My kids and I were protected in this house... Our people are peaceful, and they attacked us without warning," he remarked.
When the bombardment started, Nimma al-Akhras was at home.
She claims, "The strike was unimaginable." "We began to scream, and until someone lifted me and placed me on a cart, I was immobile.
"What went wrong, and why? We were merely seated. Neither the outside nor our homes are safe. Where on earth could we go?"
After earlier strikes, the IDF temporarily halted military operations in the city "for humanitarian purposes".
Israel claims that it is aiming to minimize civilian casualties while targeting Hamas members and their infrastructure.
A spokesman for the health ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, stated in a post on Telegram that Rafah's infrastructure and medical services were insufficient to meet the needs of the estimated 1.3 million displaced people.
"Rafah is reaching a breaking point because of the influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians and their families," he stated.
The Nasser hospital in the city is home to medical professionals who lamented the state of the "collapsed" healthcare system.
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"Most of the ICU's medical supplies are missing," Dr. Muhammad al-Qidra reported to Reuters. "We don't have any treatments or vacant beds. The majority of the medications in the emergency department are insufficient for the patients. We're looking for alternatives.
The hospital wards are being used as shelter by a large number of displaced people.
Less than half of Gaza's hospitals, and even those that are partially operational, according to the World Health Organization There were very few ambulances in operation in the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Israeli airstrikes, intense gunfights, and tank shelling were reported by locals in the densely populated refugee camps of Bureij, Nuseirat, and Maghazi in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military claimed to have killed many fighters and struck multiple targets in that area.
In Khan Younis, the IDF claimed to have killed Hamas fighters, while Hamas claimed to have fired at an IDF helicopter that was circling the city.
The battlefield claims are not verifiable by the BBC.
According to the health ministry run by Hamas, Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has now claimed the lives of 23,843 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.
After hundreds of Hamas gunmen entered southern Israeli communities from Gaza and killed roughly 1,300 people while holding about 240 others hostage, Israel began its campaign.
Source: BBC
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