The Israeli military (IDF) has expanded its Gaza operations over the last 24 hours, and has announced a new focus on establishing a "security zone" in an around the southern city of Rafah.

The push into Rafah is intended to dismantle all remaining Hamas infrastructure and command activity, given the city is seen as the group's last main stronghold in the Gaza Strip.

This has unleashed a new wave of mass displacement, with reports of hundreds of thousands fleeing the city amid the assault. The enclave for more than the last year been even more crowded, given it has served as a last place of refuge for the displaced from northern and central Gaza.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir visited Gaza this week, delivering the following message of intensified operations to get back all of the remaining hostages:

During the visit, Zamir addressed troops near Rafah, stating that the Israel Defense Forces are intensifying their offensive at a deliberate and determined pace. He emphasized that the military effort would continue until all Israeli hostages are returned and declared the mission far from over.

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry has announced at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes from Wednesday into Thursday, including at least 20 killed in a dawn airstrike on a suburb of Gaza City.

According to a Palestinian eyewitness of the stepped up assault who spoke to Reuters:

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

A ground assault on eastern Gaza City is also reported to be ongoing. This week has seen the heaviest escalation of the ground and aerial assault since the ceasefire collapsed last month.

Meanwhile controversy and international outraged has continued over the recent killings of a group of Palestinian emergency responders:

The Israeli military killed 15 medics and emergency workers in southern Gaza and buried the bodies with their ambulances and rescue vehicles last month.

Dr Ahmed al-Farra, director of pediatrics at Al-Tahreer Maternity Hospital in southern Khan Younis, saw the bodies coming into the medical facility after they were recovered a week later. He said Israeli soldiers would have easily seen they were targeting medics when they opened fire.

"The skies are filled with their planes, they can see a needle on the ground. So they could easily distinguish ambulances," al-Farra told Al Jazeera.

"When the bodies came to the hospital, they were nearly decomposed. It had been around seven to eight days since the medics were executed. I saw three of them had their hands tied behind their backs."

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have continued lobbing rockets on southern Israel, with a new round launched on Thursday. Warning sirens have returned to becoming a regular feature of life in Israeli towns and cities in the south and central of the country.

The wartime situation is set to continue for the foreseeable future, given new IDF spokesman, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, declared Thursday that the military has entered "a new stage" of the fight against Hamas. "The plan serves the goals of the war, returning the hostages and destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities," he said.

The IDF is maintaining "operational ambiguity, so we can surprise the enemy and bring about significant achievements," he said, adding that "our actions will speak".