Israel has begun a major ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, after a day of fierce fighting which saw four Palestinian children killed in an airstrike.
The four boys, named last night as Ahed and Zakaria Bakr, both aged ten, and two other boys from the Bakr family, both named Mohammad, aged 11 and nine, died in shelling from a nearby Israeli gunboat.
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They were killed as 100,000 Palestinians were urged to evacuate their homes ahead of an Israeli ground offensive.
Their deaths bring the number of those killed in the conflict to at least 215, with thousands more injured.
Emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra also revealed that Israeli tank fire had killed a five-month-old baby and another person in Rafah, southern Gaza.
In messages on Twitter, another Gaza resident, Sarah Ali, described events following the end of the ceasefire at 3pm on Thursday local time.
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“3:11 in Gaza & Israeli F16s are in the sky already. Must have been hard for terrorists to stop bombing people for 5 hours,” she said.
A few hours later, she wrote: “Now Israel is literally bombing #Gaza from everywhere: air, sea, and land. Terrifying sounds across the Strip.
"Sound of gunboat shelling is the most horrible. Not so loud but continuous & in barrage. Drones. Apaches & warships. Tanks on the outskirts of east & north Gaza. Families stuck with injuries.
"This is a war zone.”
Lt Col Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said the soldiers were going to be “striking the infrastructure... striking the operatives in order to safeguard the civilians of the state of Israel”.
Tzipi Livni, Israel’s Justice Minister, said in a statement she had backed the invasion with “a heavy heart, but wholeheartedly”.
She expressed anxiety for her country’s soldiers but also “love and confidence in their strength”.
However Israel has come under sharp criticism over its Gaza bombardments from many, including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
Speaking on LBC radio, Mr Clegg said the Israeli response to rocket fire “appears to be deliberately disproportionate".
"It is now amounting to a disproportionate form of collective punishment. It is leading to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza which is just unacceptable”.
Meanwhile Rihanna, after deleting a "#FreePalestine" tweet earlier this week, also took to Twitter to lament the crisis.
She said: "Let's pray for peace and a swift end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict! Is there any hope?"
Since the conflict began 14 years ago, 7,065 Palestinians have been killed, and 1,101 Israeli people have been killed.
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That means 87 percent of deaths have been Palestinian and 13 percent Israeli.
Statistics for the past two months are from United Nations Office for the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs.