The Israeli military said it was looking into reports of the strikes, which came as Hamas officials said that internal deliberations on the latest Israeli truce offer were nearly complete.

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said two Israeli missiles hit several tents in the Al-Mawasi area of the southern city of Khan Yunis, resulting in at least 16 deaths, "most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded".

After Israel declared Al-Mawasi a safe zone in December 2023, tens of thousands of Palestinians flocked there seeking refuge from bombardment, but the area has since been hit by repeated Israeli strikes.

Survivors described a large explosion at the densely packed encampment zone that set multiple tents ablaze.

"We were sitting peacefully in the tent, under God's protection, when we suddenly saw something red glowing -- and then the tent exploded, and the surrounding tents caught fire," Israa Abu al-Rus told AFP.

"This is supposed to be a safe area in Al-Mawasi," Abu al-Rus said. "We fled the tent towards the sea and saw the tents burning."

Bassal said Israeli strikes on two other encampments of displaced Gazans killed a further nine people -- seven in the northern town of Beit Lahia, and a father and son near Al-Mawasi.

Separately, the civil defence reported two more attacks on displaced people in Jabalia -- one that killed at least seven members of the Asaliya family, and another that killed six people at a school being used as a shelter -- as well as Israeli shelling in Gaza City that killed two.

The military later announced it had carried out a strike in Jabalia on what it said was a Hamas "command and control" centre.

- 'Starvation as a weapon' -

Israel said Wednesday that it had converted 30 percent of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive it resumed in March, ending a two-month ceasefire with Hamas.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month that the military was leaving Gaza "smaller and more isolated".

The United Nations said half a million Palestinians have been displaced since the offensive resumed, triggering what it has described as the most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

"Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive," the chief executives of 12 NGOs, including Oxfam and Save the Children, wrote in a joint statement.

The leader of Qatar, which along with Egypt and the US helped mediate the January ceasefire deal, blamed Israel on Thursday for its collapse.

"As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement," Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said during a visit to Moscow.

- New truce offer -

Hamas accused Israel on Thursday of attempting to starve Gaza's 2.4 million people after Katz said the day before that Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the territory.

"This is a public admission of committing a war crime, including the use of starvation as a weapon and the denial of basic necessities such as food, medicine, water, and fuel to innocent civilians for the seventh consecutive week," the group said in a statement.

In parallel to the Gaza offensive, Hamas said Israel had proposed a new 45-day ceasefire through mediators that would include the release of dozens of hostages.

The proposal also called for Hamas to disarm to secure a complete end to the war, a demand the group rejects.

Two Hamas officials said Thursday that internal discussions on the truce proposal were nearly complete, with one telling AFP "the group will send its response to the mediators once they finish" -- possibly on Thursday.

"Every time they say truce and just as we begin to catch our breath, the occupation resumes its bombings -- even more brutally than before," said Nidal Wresh Agha, a resident of Rafah.

"We pray that this time it is real."

The International Committee of the Red Cross, said it was "outraged" that an explosive hit one of its bases in Gaza on Wednesday, the second such strike in three weeks.

It said the strikes "highlight the risks to which civilians, medical staff and humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip are exposed today".

Israel's renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war erupted to 51,065, most of them civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.