After Israel warned them to evacuate in light of a planned ground offensive against Hamas, thousands of Palestinians fled to southern Gaza to seek refuge.
Here are 10 points on this big story:
The Israeli army said that ground forces made "localised" raids into Gaza in the last 24 hours. The aim of the raids was to "cleanse the area of terrorists and weaponry in addition to finding "missing persons", the army said. Israel has alleged that Hamas took about 150 Israeli, foreign, and dual national hostages during the attacks last week.
"Over the past 24 hours, IDF (Israeli military) forces carried out localised raids inside the territory of the Gaza Strip to complete the effort to cleanse the area of terrorists and weaponry," an Israeli army statement said.
