ISRAELI forces continued their deadly bombardment of cities, towns and refugee camps across Gaza today.

The brutal assault killed dozens of people in a widening air and ground offensive against the Palestinians that has forced thousands to flee from homes and shelters in recent days.

The Israeli assault has already killed over 21,000 Palestinians and driven a staggering 85 per cent of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. 

Much of northern Gaza has been levelled and largely depopulated. Many fear a similar fate awaits the south as Israel expands its offensive to most of the tiny enclave.

Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack during which some 1,200 people died and around 240 were taken hostage.

Despite the United States providing a seemingly endless supply of firepower to Israel, Hamas has put up stiff resistance, even in the north.

An Israeli air strike on a home in the northern town of Beit Lahiyeh, one of the first targets of the ground invasion that began in October, buried at least 21 people, including women and children, according to a family member.

Bassel Kheir al-Din, a local TV journalist, said the strike had flattened his family house and severely damaged three neighbouring homes. 

He said 12 members of his family, including three young children, were buried and presumed dead, and that nine neighbours were missing.

In central Gaza, Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the built-up Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, residents said. 

A hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 25 people killed overnight, including five children and seven women, hospital records showed yesterday. 

Saeed Moustafa, a resident of the Nuseirat camp, said: “It was another night of killing and massacres.”

He said people were still crying out from the rubble of a house hit by an air strike on Wednesday.

“We are unable to get them out. We hear their screams but we don’t have equipment,” he said.

Meanwhile, an Israeli military court on Wednesday sentenced Tal Mitnick, a young Israeli man, to 30 days in a military jail for refusing mandatory national service. 

The anti-occupation group Mesarvot, said Mr Mitnick was refusing military service as a “protest against the war in Gaza and the ongoing occupation of Palestine.”

Mr Mitnick is believed to be the first Israeli conscientious objector to be imprisoned since the beginning of Israel’s war against Gaza.

Military service in Israel is compulsory.