Israeli airstrikes kill 100 in one of Gaza war's deadliest nights

Nearly 20,700 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, including 250 in the last 24 hours, as per authorities

• The figures come a day before the Fed is set to make a decision on whether to raise rates for an 11th-straight meeting

At a funeral in Gaza on Monday a line of Palestinians touched white shrouds containing the bodies of at least 70 people who Palestinian health officials said were killed by an Israeli airstrike targeting Maghazi in the centre of the besieged strip.

It followed one of the enclave's deadliest nights in the 11-week-old battle between Israel and Hamas. One man hugged a dead child and others were hysterical.

"The walls and the curtains fell on us," said one man. "I reached down to my four-year-old child but all I found were rocks."

Strikes that began hours before midnight persisted into Monday. Palestinian media said Israel stepped up air and ground shelling in central Gaza.

Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said many of those killed at Maghazi were women and children. Eight others were killed as Israeli planes and tanks carried out dozens of airstrikes on houses and roads in nearby al-Bureij and al-Nusseirat, health officials said.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza killed 23, bringing total Palestinian fatalities overnight to more than 100.

Pope Francis said in his Christmas message on Monday that children dying in wars, including in Gaza, are the "little Jesuses of today" and that Israeli strikes were reaping an "appalling harvest" of innocent civilians.