Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip early on Friday, hitting areas where Palestinians had been told to seek safety, and it began evacuating a sizeable Israeli town near the border with Lebanon, the latest sign of a potential ground invasion of Gaza that could trigger regional turmoil.

Amid the fighting, Israel’s defence minister said the country did not have plans to maintain control over civilians in Gaza after its war against the Hamas militant group.

Defence minister Yoav Gallant’s comments to lawmakers were the first time a top Israeli official discussed its long-term plans for Gaza.

Gallant said Israel expected a three-phase war, starting with airstrikes and ground manoeuvres.

It anticipates then defeating pockets of resistance, and finally, ceasing Israel’s “responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip”.

Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy airstrikes in Khan Younis, a town in the territory’s south, and ambulances carrying men, women and children streamed into the local Nasser Hospital.

The hospital, Gaza’s second largest, already was overflowing with patients and people seeking shelter.

The Israeli military said it had struck more than 100 targets across Gaza linked to the territory’s Hamas rulers, including a tunnel and arms depots.

On Thursday, Gallant ordered ground troops to prepare to see Gaza “from the inside”, hinting at a ground offensive aimed at crushing Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers nearly two weeks after their bloody incursion into Israel.

Over a million people have been displaced in Gaza, with many heeding Israel’s orders to evacuate the northern part of the sealed-off enclave on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.