The China Mail - Gaza war rages on 100th day

There were also casualties in the West Bank, and on the Israel-Lebanon border.

The conflict, sparked by unprecedented attacks on Israel, has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4 million people in Hamas-ruled Gaza, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced parts of the coastal strip to rubble.

The UN says roughly 85 percent of the territory's population has been displaced, crowded into shelters and struggling to get food, water, fuel and medical care.

"People live in inhumane conditions, where diseases are spreading," Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said during a visit to Gaza on Saturday.

"They live through the unlivable, with the clock ticking fast towards famine."

Violence involving Iran-aligned groups in Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria has surged since the war in Gaza began in early October.

A wider conflagration has so far been averted but fears increased following US and British strikes on scores of Yemeni rebel targets Friday.

The Huthis say they will not be deterred and have vowed more attacks, in solidarity with Gaza, against what they deem Israeli-linked Red Sea shipping.

The Hamas government media office said Sunday that "more than 100 people were martyred in the attacks last night until 6:00 am in all areas of the Gaza Strip".

An AFP correspondent in Rafah, southern Gaza, saw a thick column of smoke after strikes on the city where many displaced Palestinians have sought shelter.

"It's been 100 days and our situation is very bad. There's no food, no water, no heating. We are dying from the cold," said Mohammad Kahil, displaced to Rafah, near Egypt, from Gaza City in the north.

- They thought they were safe -

Mid-afternoon, thick white smoke rolled over central Gaza, live AFPTV images showed.

At central Gaza's Al-Aqsa hospital, the bodies arrived piled on a donkey cart after Israeli strikes that Hisham Abu Suweh said killed one of his children.

As civilians, Suweh said his family had thought they would be safe.

Fewer than half of Gaza's hospitals are even partly functioning, the World Health Organization says.

The war began when Gaza-based Hamas attacked on October 7, resulting in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Hamas is considered a "terrorist" group by the United States and the European Union.

The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 23,968 people in the Palestinian territory, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.

"I have never seen a war like this one," said Liga Jabr, 89, who was first uprooted when she was a child and has now been displaced to Rafah.

On the Israel-Lebanon border, which has seen regular exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas ally Hezbollah, the Israeli army said it killed three gunmen who had crossed the frontier and "fired at the forces".

The army said warplanes also hit Hezbollah positions after a missile strike on a house in an Israeli border community. The missile killed an Israeli woman and her son, local officials and medics said.

- PM under pressure -

"What has the enemy achieved in 100 days, other than killing?" asked Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech.

Israel's military has said its forces have dismantled the Hamas command structure in Gaza's north.

On Sunday the military said it had struck rocket launching pits in Gaza's north and hit targets across the strip, including the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

Hamas's military wing reported "clashes with Zionist (Israeli) forces" in Khan Yunis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a government budget meeting on Sunday that additional security expenditures are needed.

"We must conduct this war, and it will yet take many months," he said.

Netanyahu is under intense domestic pressure to account for political and security failings surrounding the attack, and to bring the hostages home. He is also on trial for corruption charges that he denies.

- Hostages 'in tunnels, in basements' -

On a cold and rainy Sunday in Tel Aviv, Israelis danced, sang and prayed at a series of events to mark the 100 days of captivity for the Gaza hostages.

"I don't think we imagined a situation where we would be here on the 100th day," said Gili Dvash Yeshurun, who attended the commemoration.

Israel's trade union federation, the Histadrut, said hundreds of thousands of workers joined a 100-minute strike.

"I hoped that a miracle would happen and we wouldn't need to stand here today," Histadrut chairman Arnon Bar-David told a rally.

He added it was necessary to "remind the whole world" that the hostages were still held "in Gaza, in tunnels, in basements".

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed: "We will not let the world forget. We will not leave them behind."

In the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since early October, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians including two shot dead when their car broke through a checkpoint, sources on both sides said.

Troops also detained two sisters of Saleh al-Aruri, Hamas's deputy leader killed in a strike in Beirut this month, Palestinian sources and the Israeli army said.

A US defence official has said Israel carried out that strike, which stoked fears of wider war.

On the latest foreign diplomatic mission to the region, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in Egypt, urged the establishment of a Palestinian state and a ceasefire in Gaza.

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K.Leung--ThChM