A city in fear 'The families here have fled four or five times now'

Panic and despair spread across Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah after a night of intense bombardment on the area where more than a million people have fled seeking shelter but now fear an Israeli ground assault.

- Ruth Michaelson

"Last night was the heaviest night that we witnessed since we fled to Rafah. It reminded us of what we endured in the northern parts of Gaza, in Gaza City and again in Khan Younis," said Yousef Hammash of the Norwegian

Refugee Council, sheltering in the city with his family.

He said he had feared even looking out the window during a night of fierce attacks across Rafah that killed at least 67 people according to health authorities. The Palestinian news agency Wafa said as many as 100 people had died.

Hammash said the strikes had been so intense he believed Israel had already launched a ground operation on the border region.

At least half of the Gaza Strip's 2.3 million residents, including at least 600,000 children according to Unicef, are crammed into Rafah, which previously housed a fraction of that number.