GAZA (Reuters) -Conditions in overcrowded coastal encampments for displaced Palestinians in Gaza are so desperate that some people who fled Israel's new offensive on famine-struck Gaza City in recent days are heading back towards the falling bombs, they told Reuters.

Those fleeing are mainly seeking shelter either in the area by the sea immediately west of Gaza City or in Mawasi, a sprawling tent camp along beaches and farmland in the south that Israel has designated a humanitarian zone, aid agencies said.

Many of them are arriving to find no space for shelter, few tents, inadequate water supply and restricted health care, according to over a dozen Palestinians who had made the difficult trip with their families and who, along with UNICEF and the Hamas-run Gaza government, spoke to Reuters for this story.

"I have been in the sun for two days looking for a place and could not find any. Now I had to take my belongings and go back to Gaza City," said Mohammed al-Sherif, 35, who left the Sabra district of Gaza City along with his family and those of his two brothers on Monday after Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on the area warning all civilians to get out.

With many motor vehicles destroyed and little petrol, travel inside Gaza is slow and expensive. Sherif's family loaded all their belongings on a donkey cart and went to Mawasi, where Reuters video showed them trudging through densely packed camps, but they have no tent and could find nowhere to stay, he said.

"This is not our situation only, but everyone's. People come, don't find a shelter or a place, then leave and go back to danger. We don't know what to do," he said.

Satellite images reviewed by Reuters showed large areas of Mawasi jammed with tents even before the current arrivals, though some apparent fields remained.

Barely any agricultural land is still available in Gaza where aid agencies have cited the lack of space to grow food as a significant contributor to widespread malnutrition.

Other images showed increases in tent........

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