Extract from ABC News
Twelve-year-old Hamoud el Zeik picks up a pile of folded blankets and carries them across the sandy ground towards a waiting donkey.
The young boy has already moved 10 times with his family throughout this war to escape fighting in Gaza.
Now they're on the move again.
"We want to rest," he sighs, as he and his siblings lug the family's few possessions away.
The el Zeik family has been sheltering in Gaza's most southern city Rafah, which was declared a so called "safe zone" by Israel in the first weeks of the war.
Since then, Israel has carried out more than 290 air or drone strikes in the Rafah administrative area, killing at least 2,110 people including civilians, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
After Israel announced its plan to invade Rafah, Hamoud's father Zaher made the difficult decision to move his family for an 11th time.
"You can see how we are living, the situation is dire," he says.
Zaher has been tearing down the wooden structure of the makeshift tent that the family has been living in since arriving in Rafah earlier this year.
Before that, they'd fled from the north, seeking shelter in residential buildings, hospitals and even in the grounds of an ambulance station.
Zaher's decision to flee again was cemented after Israel launched a series of air strikes into Rafah earlier this week.
At least 67 people were killed in the bombings according to Palestinian authorities, including large numbers of civilians.
Israel said the strikes were providing cover for its military forces to rescue two hostages being held by Hamas in Rafah.
But the night-time offensive stoked terror and panic for Palestinians and a forewarning of what could come next.
"[It was] so intense. My wife and children were very scared," Zaher says.
"Around us at least 15 tents have moved out of here [now]. We thought we'd rather move out with our belongings, instead of losing everything."
There isn't a lot for the el Zeik family to move — some foam mattresses, a couple of garbage bags of clothes, four bottles of water and two bags of rice.
They are moving to Nuseirat in central Gaza, where Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli air strikes.
Cars, flatbed trucks and donkeys packed with similar possessions clog the roads out of Rafah, in a sign that other Palestinians are also leaving.
'We have nowhere to go, we have nobody'
More than 1 million people who had fled fighting have been packed into this city, which straddles the border with Egypt.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he asked his military to develop a plan to "evacuate" Palestinians from Rafah before an invasion occurs.
But the idea has attracted widespread condemnation from international human rights groups and world leaders, who've expressed deep concerns about where civilians would go.
Yesterday, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong described a ground invasion of Rafah as "unjustifiable", adding that it would bring further devastation to more than a million civilians seeking shelter.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later released a joint statement with his counterparts in Canada and New Zealand, urging Israel to not to go down the "catastrophic" path of an expanded military operation.
"We are gravely concerned by indications that Israel is planning a ground offensive into Rafah. A military operation into Rafah would be catastrophic," the statement read.
"We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path. There is simply nowhere else for civilians to go."
Huge swathes of residential buildings and infrastructure have been demolished elsewhere in the Gaza Strip and on-the-ground fighting and aerial attacks are still a danger.
Im Bahaa has also packed up her meagre possessions and children onto a donkey.
She's already fled six times before.
Im is desperate to protect her children, after her husband was killed in the war along with about 28,000 other Palestinians.
She says she will move to Zawaida in central Gaza — an area that's been hit by air strikes this week.
"We are afraid for us and our children," she says.
"We have nowhere to go to. We know nobody.
"When they started bombing Khan Younis it was almost over our head, we left for Rafah.
"And now, they talk about raiding Rafah so we are leaving back north without knowing what will happen to us."
Im becomes emotional when she describes how her husband died after the building he was in collapsed.
"We are done with wars," she cries out.
"We are displaced, our husbands died, our children died, our homes collapsed, we moved from one place to the other; it is only war and destruction.
"We don't want war. We don't want blood — not in their place, not in ours.
"They were harmed, so are we. We want peace between our two people."
Mr Netanyahu has said a ground offensive in Rafah is needed to thwart the last bastion of Hamas, which he claims is hiding out in the city.
Israel also suspects several of the 130-plus remaining hostages could be found inside Rafah.
But there are some displaced Palestinians in the city that are determined they won't be moved again, including 30 year-old Bilal Kassa.
He has been sheltering in the same area of Rafah that was the target of this week's Israeli air strikes.
"Where can we go? Where can we go? There is no safe place," he says.
"We are remaining here. We won't leave.
"We left once and they destroyed our house. Next time, we won't leave.
"We suffered. Enough with injustice, enough with lack of dignity.
"We'd rather live with dignity at least, [and] we prefer to die as martyrs."
Other Palestinians in Rafah feel paralysed about whether to stay or go.
"We don't know what to do anymore," says Mohammed Lulu.
"We are waiting for the Israelis to tell us where the safe place is to go to.
"[But] there is not a single safe place in the whole country. We are waiting to see where to go."
Israel is yet to indicate when it plans to launch the ground invasion, but says civilians will be given a chance to leave the area.
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