Beleaguered Gazans, having fled the territory’s north, emerged from a night of bombardment wondering where to go next for safety.

A focal point of the operations Monday was a main road Israel had previously designated as an evacuation route for Gazans fleeing from the north to the south.

The Israeli army offensive has moved towards the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Elsewhere, Israel struck Hezbollah militia positions in southern Lebanon. Israel strikes Hezbollah positions in Lebanon Israel's military has again struck Helzbollah militia positions in southern Lebanon in response to what it says was shelling from across the border.

On the ground in Gaza, Israeli troops are moving south and prompting more civilian evacuations. And as tension grows in the Middle East, the U.S. military says it fended off attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Israel has begun an invasion of southern Gaza, the last section of the territory that had been under full Hamas control, with dozens of armored vehicles rolling closer to its main city and strikes pummeling urban areas.

By Arafat Barbakh and Mohammed Salem GAZA (Reuters) -Intense Israeli air strikes hit the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, including in areas where Israel had told people to seek shelter,

"People have been, for 50 days or more, withstanding brutal Israeli onslaught and are very low on all resources - food, water, power and the sanitation and the waste services," he

More than 100 hostages are free. At least 5,000 Hamas fighters are dead. Some 500 tunnel shafts have been destroyed. The Israeli military controls two thirds of northern Gaza. It’s a third of the way to its goal — destroying Hamas — and is launched on the next phase of bombing the south.