ISRAEL created thousands more Palestinian refugees today when it ordered residents in northern and eastern regions of the Gaza Strip to leave home to avoid heavy bombing.

The Palestinian death toll in nine days of fighting rose to 204, with some 1,450 wounded, health officials said.

On the other side, one man was killed on Tuesday evening by a mortar as he was supplying Israel Defence Force (IDF) troops with food on the border.

A small number of Israel’s civilians have been injured since its offensive began on July 8.

Renewed Israeli attacks followed Palestinian rejection of a supposed truce proposal that had been discussed between Egyptian, Israeli and US leaders before being offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis to Hamas.

The proposal called for a halt to hostilities, but it excluded all reference to the bilateral blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt or to the hundreds of Palestinians interned on the West Bank in recent weeks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Hamas would pay a high price for rejecting the truce offer.

However, three-quarters of all casualties of the Israeli bombing campaign have been civilians, including many children.

The Gaza Interior Ministry website reported that Israel’s warplanes had carried out dozens of air strikes before dawn yesterday, targeting 30 houses, including those of senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar, Jamila Shanti, Fathi Hamas and Ismail Ashkar.

Mr Zahar is a founder member of Hamas, while the other three were members of the Palestinian parliament elected in 2006.

Israel used phone calls, text messages and air-dropped leaflets to order tens of thousands of residents of the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the Zeitoun and Shijaiyah neighbourhoods of Gaza City to flee their homes by 8am.

Even the Wafa Rehabilitation Centre in Shijaiyah, which cares for 15 disabled and elderly patients, was told repeatedly to evacuate its patients.

The building had already been shelled once previously.

An Israeli military spokesman explained this was because “there is a rocket launching site in the area” and “militants use the centre to hide behind civilians.”