Gaza/UNI: More than 1,23,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes in the Gaza Strip as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict escalates, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Sunday.

"As of 21:00, 123,538 Palestinians had been displaced in Gaza," the OCHA said in a statement.

Israel was hit by an unprecedented rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning.

The Israeli army said Hamas fired more than 3,000 rockets, adding that dozens of Hamas troops infiltrated border areas in southern Israel.

The Israeli military has since sent troops to the southern territories to reconquer them from the Palestinian forces and has started conducting strikes at Hamas' positions in Gaza.

The Israeli government announced on Sunday that it had invoked Article 40 of the Basic Law, which means the country officially entered a state of war.

Both sides report hundreds of dead and thousands of injured as a result of the escalation of the conflict.