A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 20 tunnels used by Hamas to smuggle weapons into Gaza had been found within the zone.

Egyptian TV quoted sources denying this, and said Israel was trying to justify its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The announcement comes during a period of heightened tensions with Egypt.

“In recent days, IDF troops established operational control on the Philadelphi Corridor, on the border between Egypt and Rafah,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday.

He described the corridor as a “lifeline” for Hamas, through which the group “regularly smuggled weapons into the Gaza Strip”.

He said troops were “investigating.. and neutralizing” tunnels found in the area.

Mr Hagari later said in a briefing with reporters that he could not be sure that all of the tunnels crossed into Egypt, the New York Times reported.

The Philadelphi Corridor is a buffer zone, only about 100m (330ft) wide in parts, which runs along the Gaza side of the 13km (8-mile) border with Egypt. Gaza’s only other land border is with Israel itself.

Egypt has previously said it had destroyed cross-border tunnels, making any weapons smuggling impossible.

And a “high-level” Egyptian source, quoted by Al-Qahera News, accused Israel of “using these allegations to justify continuing the operation on the Palestinian city of Rafah and prolonging the war for political purposes”.

Israel has insisted that it must take Rafah to achieve victory in the war triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on the country on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 252 others were taken hostage.

At least 36,170 people have been killed across Gaza since the start of the conflict, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Tensions between Egypt and Israel have heightened since Israeli forces took control of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing point three weeks ago as part of their offensive against Hamas.

Earlier this week, an Egyptian soldier was killed in an incident involving Egyptian and Israeli troops in the border area near Rafah.

Egypt is a strong supporter of the Palestinians and has condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the killing of thousands of civilians by Israel in the war.

Like Israel, Egypt has maintained a blockade on its border with Gaza since Hamas came to power in 2006. Hamas is an off-shoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which is banned as a terrorist group in Egypt.

Egypt has, however, kept channels open with Hamas and has been acting as a mediator in on-off indirect talks between Israel and the group to try to reach a ceasefire deal and release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

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It comes as US school officials brace for possible disruptions of commencement events over Israel-Gaza war protests.

Dozens of colleges roiled by protests are holding graduations this weekend.

More than 2,000 people have been arrested since protest began mid-April.

Social media posts on Saturday showed Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) students in caps and gowns leaving the room as Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin began his commencement address.

Video posted online show some of the VCU protesters chanting “disclose, divest – we will not stop we will not rest”.

Many students protesters in the US are demanding that their schools, many with massive endowments, financially cut ties from Israel.

People were clapping so loudly, members of the audience couldn’t hear Mr Youngkin speak, Sereen Haddad, a second-year VCU student who helped organise the protest, told the BBC on Saturday evening.

Thirteen people, including six students, were arrested at VCU when the encampment there was cleared by police on 29 April.

Mr Youngkin’s speech went on as planned despite the walk-out. He later posted a message on social media congratulating graduates and did not comment on the protest.

At another commencement on Saturday, the University of California Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ opened the ceremony by acknowledging the weeks of demonstrations from protesters.

The remarks drew some applause as well as chants of: “Hey hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go”.

Some 20 students stood up and began waving signs, Palestinian flags and chanting, “Free Palestine” as during another speech, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, and they were later joined in chants by more graduates.

In a statement, UC Berkeley said that the event continued despite being “unfortunately disrupted” and that protesters who left the ceremony did so voluntarily. No one was arrested.

In the past month, the BBC has counted more than 130 US colleges and universities with protests against the ongoing war in Gaza.

Campus protests have led to some graduation ceremonies being cancelled, including at New York’s Columbia University, which said last week it was ditching its 15 May commencement in favour of smaller celebrations to focus on keeping students “safe”.

Many schools have brought in additional measures for the graduation events, such as requiring identification, instituting clear bag policies, and issuing warnings that people causing a disruption will be removed.

Some commencement speakers have also withdrawn, like author Colson Whitehead, who said he would no longer be the keynote speaker at the University of Massachusetts Amherst event after police cleared an encampment there.

Others have had their speeches cancelled.

The University of Vermont and Xavier University of Louisiana recently rescinded invitations to have the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speak under students pressure to drop the Biden administration official from the line-up.

Some universities, including University of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had police clear encampments and arrest protesters on Friday ahead of graduation ceremonies.

At the University of Arizona, police used “loud munitions” and “chemical munitions” to clear remaining protesters from an encampment, the university said.

While some universities have avoided clearing the protest camps, others have brought in police to help remove demonstrators.

Earlier this week, the chief of police at Arizona State University was placed on paid administrative leave “pending a review” after the school received a number of complaints about his handling of the campus protests in late April, ASU said on Friday.

During a press conference at her residence in Accra on March 14, 2024, Ambassador Sufa highlighted the urgency of addressing sexual violence collaboratively.

“This is a great moment to distribute the information on sexual violence. It’s important for any person to be aware of the sexual violence that took place. This is not political bias. It’s a matter of being on either side of the conflict. It’s morally wrong.

“I believe that continents that have had their fair share of war crimes, countries like Ghana and other African countries can relate to our plight. These atrocities of October 7, 2023, I believe there will be change.”

Ambassador Sufa noted that, Israel has been actively engaging with international partners and organizations to combat sexual violence.

“Yes, we have been reaching out to the relevant UN agencies, and relevant international women’s organizations. Unfortunately, we have received no response whatsoever. We were extremely disappointed that there was no such response by international communities.

“Yet three weeks ago, we had a visit from the special representative of the secretary general of sexual violence and conflict in the person of Pramela Parten, who submitted a report to the secretary-general.”

Ambassador Sufa called for global recognition of the trauma inflicted by Hamas and the suffering endured by the victims, labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization acknowledged by numerous countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan, and the European Union.

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A map showed six northern and central areas of Khan Younis where an estimated 167,000 people needed to leave.

Witnesses also reported seeing tanks to the east, and a doctor said a local hospital was overwhelmed by casualties.

In Gaza City, an unconfirmed report says 50 people were killed when Israeli air strikes hit two schools.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, they died in schools sheltering displaced people in the city’s Daraj neighbourhood.

Reuters news agency has said that the strikes are still to be independently verified and that the Hamas-run health ministry could not be reached for comment. The Israeli army said it was looking into the report.

Many of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are sheltering in the south after being previously ordered to leave the north.

The Israeli military said it would operate with “maximum force” in the south, as it had done in the north – where there has been widespread destruction over the past eight weeks.

Israel launched a full-scale campaign in Gaza in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack by Hamas gunmen on 7 October, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and about 240 others taken hostage.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says almost 15,900 people have been killed in the territory since the war began, while the UN says a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding.

A temporary ceasefire that lasted for seven days, which led to the release of 105 of the hostages and 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, fell apart on Friday.

BBC Gaza correspondent Rushdi Abu Alouf, who is currently in Istanbul, says about 200 Israeli air strikes were reported overnight.

About 15 to 20 locations were targeted in and around Khan Younis, where the local population has swelled to as much as 1.2 million, according to local authorities. The central town of Deir al-Balah, about 8km (5 miles) to the north, was also bombed heavily.

Dozens of casualties, including women and children, arrived at Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital from different areas. Many were dead or seriously injured.

Mohammed Eid wiped tears from his bandaged face as he lined up among the mourners by bodies covered in white shrouds outside the hospital on Monday morning.

“We were sleeping safely, minding our own business. Suddenly, a bomb fell on us, and the whole building was destroyed,” he told the BBC.

“My brother was torn into pieces, and so was his wife. My daughter was killed, and his daughters were killed, including his littlest. We can’t find my mum, and my niece.”

Later, witnesses and local journalists in Gaza reported that they had seen Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis, by Abasan and Khuzaa, which is nearest to the boundary fence with Israel.

Moaz Mohammed told AFP news agency that he had seen tanks moving down the main north-south highway, Salah al-Din Road, which has been one of two Israeli-designated evacuation routes.

The tanks were “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area” between Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, he said.

At the same time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned civilians to avoid a section of Salah al-Din Road in the same area, saying it now constituted a “battlefield” and was “extremely dangerous”.

The IDF also posted a map that ordered residents of six northern and central neighbourhoods of Khan Younis – al-Mahatta, al-Katiba, Hamad, al-Satir, Bani Suheila and Ma’in – to leave immediately to “preserve your safety and security”.

According to the UN, the marked area in Khan Younis was home to almost 117,000 people before the war. It also includes 21 shelters where 50,000 displaced people are currently living.

The map tells them to move to al-Fukhari, east of Khan Younis, and Rafah’s al-Shaboura and Tal al-Sultan neighbourhoods, which are already overcrowded.

IDF chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement that Israeli forces were continuing to operate with “maximum force against Hamas terrorists and infrastructure, while minimising harm to the civilians that Hamas places around them as shields”.

“We are dropping leaflets with QR codes that opens a map guiding Gazans to safer areas. The map is divided into neighbourhood numbers indicating where civilians in a specific area should go to avoid being in the crossfire,” he added.

The IDF has introduced the scheme because it is under heavy pressure from the US to protect civilians. However, our Gaza correspondent says he has spoken to Palestinians in the affected areas who are not aware of the map or cannot see it because there is no internet coverage.

“This is a joke, not a map, because we don’t know where to go,” a displaced person who was sheltering in Khan Younis told him.

Meanwhile, an orthopaedic surgeon at the European Hospital in Khan Younis told the BBC that it was overwhelmed by hundreds of wounded.

“It is chaotic – we can’t absorb any more patients and they keep coming,” Dr Paul Ley said. “We have more than 360 people on the operating list, which is impossible to deal with.”

Dr Ley also said the hospital’s corridors and grounds were full with 6,000 to 7,000 displaced people, some of whom were medics who had fled the north.

“Anaesthetics and pain killers are a big problem – we are running out slowly so we are lowering our safety standards. We never leave the hospital and our presence here has been notified to the Israelis, but shrapnel has reached the hospital,” he added.

Médecins Sans Frontières also warned that more than 100 dead and over 400 injured people had arrived at the emergency room of Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah in the last 48 hours, and that there was no space for new patients.

The UN said on Monday that four hospitals in the north were partially operating and admitting patients, with only limited services.

The 12 hospitals in the south are partially functional, but bed capacity is only half what it was before the war and only one hospital can perform complex surgery.