Israeli strikes hit southern Gaza as ceasefire talks underway in Paris

Israeli air strikes targeted homes in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said on Friday, adding to what aid groups describe as an increasingly hopeless humanitarian situation despite efforts towards new truce talks.

An Israeli delegation led by David Barnea, head of the Mossad intelligence agency, has arrived in Paris in efforts to "unblock" truce discussions in the war with Hamas militants.

His trip follows what the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said was the death of more than 100 people over the previous day.

Israeli bombardment obliterated one house and left a gaping hole in the earth east of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where about 1.4 million Gazans have converged in a futile search to escape the fighting.

"We were sleeping in our house when we heard the sound of a missile," said Abdul Hamid Abu el-Enein. "We rushed to the site and found people martyred and injured" in the strike which "completely erased" the two-storey home.

Witnesses reported several other houses targeted during the night, and an AFP reporter described heavy air strikes in the city of Khan Younis several kilometres to the north, as well as in Rafah itself.

Israel's military said fighting, including with drone strikes and sniper fire, continued in the western Khan Younis area.