Israel bombed Gaza on Saturday as the United Nations warned the Palestinian territory has become uninhabitable after three months
of fighting that threatens to engulf the wider region.
AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes early Saturday on Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.
Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the conflict, with the UN warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis as famine looms and disease spreads. Abu Mohammed, 60, who fled to Rafah from the central Bureij refugee camp, told AFP Gaza's future was "dark and gloomy and very difficult".
With much of the territory already reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Friday that "Gaza has simply become uninhabitable".
The UN's children's agency warned that clashes, malnutrition, and a lack of health services had created "a deadly cycle that threatens over 1.1 million children" in Gaza.
Israeli forces were continuing "to fight in all parts of the Gaza Strip, in the north, center and south", military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday.
Hagari said Israeli forces were maintaining a "very high state of readiness" near the border with Lebanon following the killing of a top Hamas commander in a strike in Beirut.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike, but a US defense official told AFP that Israel carried it out.
Fighting rages - AFP correspondents reported Friday that Israeli strikes had hit the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah as well as parts of central Gaza.
A hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah reported that 35 people had been killed there. The Israeli army said its forces had "struck over 100 targets" across Gaza in the previous 24 hours, including military positions, rocket launch sites, and weapons depots.
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