Israel presses on with Gaza offensive

Gaza, Jan 13 (Reuters): Israel kept up bombardments in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as its deadly war on the enclave's Hamas rulers approached 100 days with no end in sight. In the southern city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike on a house sheltering two displaced families killed 10 people, the Gaza health ministry said.

Holding up a photo of a dead girl with a piece of bread in her hand, Bassem Arafeh, a relative, said the families in Rafah had been eating dinner when the house was struck on Friday night.

"This child died while she was hungry, while she was eating a piece of bread with nothing on it, where is the International Criminal Court to see how the children die?" Arafeh said. "Where are the Muslims ... and the world leaders?"

Israel says it targets militants and does all it can to minimize harm to non-combatants as it wages urban warfare against Hamas in the densely populated Palestinian enclave.

But the scale of the killing in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation has shocked world opinion and fuelled growing calls for a ceasefire. The Israeli military said on Saturday its forces had killed numerous militants in the southern area of Khan Younis and in the central Gaza Strip. It said it was looking into the reported strike in Rafah. Hamas said its fighters fired at an Israeli helicopter in southern Gaza's Khan Younis.

In the central Gaza Strip, residents reported intense gunbattles and tank shelling and Israeli air strikes in Al-Bureij, Al-Nusseirat and Al-Maghazi, areas housing refugees and descendants of the 1948 war.

The Israeli military said it targeted militants and a Hamas command center in those areas. Israeli forces were also seen on the edge of Deir Al-Balah, a town to the west where Israel had been urging residents to shelter.

Witnesses said a bus was hit nearby by an Israeli missile. There were no immediate reports of casualties. More than 20 fatalities were reported in northern Gaza, Beit Lahiya and in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City. Israel has announced a new phase in combat, withdrawing some forces from northern Gaza, where they deployed three weeks after the militants rampaged through southern Israel on Oct. 7, sparking the war that will mark 100 days on Sunday.