The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is over, and now Gazans have to flee once more for safety
Plumes of smoke rise once again into the clear skies over Gaza.
Artillery boomed and jets screamed through the skies above us as the skyline to the north of the strip filled with smoke as buildings and Hamas targets were pounded by the Israeli military.
Loudspeakers blared out warnings of incoming Hamas rockets.
Follow the Israel-Hamas conflict live as military operations begin again
We hit the ground as Iron Dome interceptors halted their path – explosions reverberated around the near-deserted streets of the Israeli town of Sderot.
The war has started again. It was always a matter of when not if.
Israel says the ceasefire was broken by Hamas firing the first rockets, while Hamas says Israel kept saying no to the offers they were making during negotiations to extend the ceasefire.
Either way, the war has resumed. And for civilians caught up in it, who started it again is probably of little consequence.
53-year-old Gaza resident Yousif Ligi thought the truce would hold. And then woke up to the bombs in his neighbourhood.
“There is no safe place, we do not know where to go. Wherever we go they bomb it. How long will this bombing continue? Find us a solution with whatever means,” he said, looking dazed.
Families fleeing further south in Gaza
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Sky News teams filming in the north and south of the Gaza Strip sent messages saying the intensity of the bombing is as bad as it’s ever been.
Soon they began to send us pictures from inside Gaza.
It’s a familiar scene now.
Streets filled with smoke and dust as bombs begin to fall, people rushing to search for loved ones and neighbours trapped in the rubble, desperately scrabbling by hand.
Houses and apartment blocks smashed to pieces.
The bodies of the dead, shrouded in white, laid together.
In one scene a woman gently strokes the body of a relative, watched on by a little girl.
Woman in Gaza strokes a covered body while a little girl watches
A woman prays over a covered body in Gaza
We don’t know who they are.
Inside the hospitals the staff struggle to deal with a new influx of injured from the bombardment. Gurney after gurney rushed into the emergency rooms.
The medical centres in Gaza are already stretched to breaking point.
With negotiations around extending the ceasefire deadlocked, in many ways it was inevitable hostilities would resume.
The question now though is what happens to the hundreds of thousands of people in the south.
This is the greatest concern for the international community.
Already there is a mass exodus further to the south.
Families fleeing further south in Gaza
Our team in Gaza filmed as people left the city of Khan Younis, many of them had already been forced from their homes by the fighting in the north at the start of the war.
Some left by horse and cart, others in cars packed full carrying entire families – and any possessions that can cram on board.
Others reduced to escaping by foot.
One displaced Gaza resident, Sana Abdulkarim, walking with her sons and daughters, told us they feel “lost”, and don’t know where to find safety.
“We are scared that what they have done in the north, they will do in the south as well,” she said.
The family plans to go to Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
“We can’t find shelter anywhere else, where shall we go? We don’t know where to go. We will go to the first school, we don’t have to be inside, we can sit in the playground, what else can we do? What else can we do?”
In conflicts like this, the importance of schools as safe zones is inestimable.
An IDF leaflet with a QR code that has an interactive map of Gaza on it
Smoke near the Jabalia camp in Gaza
The IDF has been dropping leaflets with a QR code that links to an interactive map that has Gaza divided into block numbers.
They say the map will help residents navigate the war zone and evacuate safely.
But thousands remain in the north.
And at one school in the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City, our cameras filmed a fire caused by an Israeli airstrike.
It was next to classrooms now full of people seeking shelter and is far from the relative safety of the south.
As the fighting intensifies, it’s hard to imagine how people like this could possibly even move.
The cardinals have arrived, the finishing touches are being made; Vatican City is preparing for an election like no other.
On Wednesday, the papal conclave begins and many visitors to St Peter’s Square already have a clear view on what they would like the outcome to be.
“I want a liberal pope,” says Joyce who has travelled to Rome from the US.
“My number one is Pierbattista Pizzaballa,” says blogger Teodorita Giovannella referencing the 60-year-old Italian cardinal.
Rome resident Michele Rapinesi thinks the next pope will be the Vatican’s secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, who was Pope Francis’ number two.
Joyce has travelled all the way to Rome from the US
Michele Rapinesi speaks to Siobhan Robbins
Although the job of selecting the next pontiff lies with 133 cardinal electors, Ms Giovannella and Mr Rapinesi are among 75,000 Italians playing an online game trying to predict who they’ll pick.
Fantapapa is a similar format to fantasy football, but teams are made up of prospective pontiffs.
Ms Giovannella has chosen three popular Italians as her favourites: Cardinals Pizzaballa, Zuppi and Parolin.
After 47 years she wants an Italian pope but believes an Asian or African would be a good “plot twist”.
Despite the growing speculation and excitement, for the cardinal electors the papal conclave is the serious and sombre process of choosing the next leader of the Catholic Church and its 1.4 billion followers.
Teodorita Giovannella is hoping the next pope will be a fellow Italian
To keep the vote secret, they are locked in the Sistine Chapel which has been swept for hidden cameras, recording equipment and bugs.
The windows are covered to keep the outside world out and to stop drones from spying.
Mobile phones are banned and signal jammers have been installed to help stop any information being leaked.
Ballots are burned after they are cast and a plume of coloured smoke shows people if a new pope has been chosen.
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Preparations inside the Sistine Chapel
The cardinal who is elected will become one of the most powerful men in the world and will set the course for the Catholic Church for years to come, making decisions which will affect the lives of millions of people worldwide.
Pope Francis’ 12-year reign pulled the church in a more progressive direction.
His fight for migrants and climate change made him a muse for Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta.
He met him five times and painted more than 30 pictures of him, celebrating his life on the walls of Rome.
Siobhan Robbins with Rome street artist Mauro Pallotta
One of Mr Pallotta’s artworks of Pope Francis
One shows Francis with a catapult shooting out hearts.
“It depicts the strong love he had for people,” Mr Pallotta explains.
In another, he wears a cape and is depicted as a superhero.
“I hope the new pope continues the way of Pope Francis and remembers the poor people of the world,” he says.
Whether the next pontiff is another pope of the people, a progressive or conservative will soon be decided by the cardinals.
Their choice will determine if the Catholic Church continues down the route set by Francis or takes a different path.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
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