According to the Associated Press (AP), Israeli troops have returned to fighting Palestinian militias in areas of the largest city in the Gaza Strip that the Tel Aviv Army said had been largely vacated for months.
The military ordered evacuations ahead of the attacks, but residents insist nowhere is safe in a territory where most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced.
Israel ordered the evacuation of the northern Palestinian enclave in the first weeks of the war and prevented most people from returning. But hundreds of thousands remain, living in shelters or isolated homes.
Hamas said it had demonstrated flexibility in indirect negotiations on a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages that it has held since October 7, and accused the head of the Tel Aviv government, Benjamin Netanyahu, of establishing obstacles, including the latest escalation of violence.
The incursion into Gaza City came after Israel and Hamas appeared to be closer to bridging gaps in negotiations.
"We fled in the darkness amid heavy attacks," said Sayeda Abdel-Baki, a mother of three who took shelter with family in the Daraj neighborhood, to the AP, adding: "This is the fifth time I have been displaced."
Residents reported artillery and tank fire, as well as airstrikes. The Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas and with limited access to the north of the enclave, has not yet released the number of victims.
Israel issued additional evacuation orders for areas in several neighborhoods in central Gaza City.
The military said it had intelligence data indicating that militants from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group were in those locations and asked residents to head south to the city of Deir al-Balah.
Israel accuses Hamas men and other militants of hiding among civilians.
In Shijaiyah, a neighborhood of Gaza City that has seen weeks of fighting, the military said troops invaded and destroyed schools and a clinic that had been converted into movement compounds.
Despite the hostilities, Israel and Hamas appear to be closer to a ceasefire agreement that would halt the fighting in exchange for the release of dozens of hostages captured by Hamas in the attack it carried out on Israeli soil on October 7 and which triggered the current conflict.
The director of the US intelligence agency CIA, William Burns, returned to the region today for talks in Cairo, according to Egyptian state TV Qahera, which is close to the security services.
An Israeli delegation was also heading to the Egyptian capital, Israeli media reported.
Israel has rejected any deal that would force it to end the war with Hamas, a condition Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday.
Hamas indicated in a statement today that it is "offering flexibility" and a positive stance to facilitate an agreement, while "Netanyahu is placing more obstacles in the path of negotiations, increasing his aggression and crimes" against the Palestinian people and "persisting in attempts to displace him by force in order to frustrate all efforts" for an understanding.
After the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel launched a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has already caused more than 38,000 deaths, most of them civilians, according to local authorities, and the destruction of the territory.
