Palestinians continued to flee from Gaza City Thursday, where Israel has begun an expanded ground offensive.

Some 1 million people live in the largest Palestinian city, already devastated from earlier raids and experiencing famine.

Many have been attempting to relocate to the southern Gaza Strip after the Israeli military called for a full evacuation.

They are trying to get to what the Israeli army claims to be safe areas in the central and southern Gaza Strip.

"It’s a life of hell," said Sanaa Sobh, a displaced woman and cancer patient who fled her home in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. "Why all this? What did we do for them to do this to us? Shame on them."

Thousands of Palestinians fled their homes and moved southward in recent weeks, taking whatever little possessions they could escape with.

People were seen walking southward on Thursday through the coastal Rashid Road, with few fleeing on vehicles amid skyrocketing transportation prices.

"There is no peace of mind, no money, no food, no drink. All the necessities of life are missing, entirely," said Suad Tolan, a woman displaced from Beit Hanoun.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed some 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians. Forty-eight hostages are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed to be alive.

The war has killed more than 65,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government.

U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. It does not say how many of those killed were civilians or combatants.