Israeli air strikes flattened Hamas government buildings in the Gaza Strip and targeted leaders of Gaza's Islamist groups today on the third day of its fiercest offensive against the Palestinians in four decades.
The toll from the offensive rose to 327 dead and around 700 wounded, Palestinian medical officials said. The United Nations said at least 57 of the dead were civilians.
"We have an all-out war against Hamas and its kind," Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told parliament.
Broadening their targets to include the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes bombed the Interior Ministry, which supervises 13,000 members of the group's security forces. The building had been evacuated and there were no casualties.
The planes also attacked the homes of two top commanders in Hamas's armed wing. They were not home, but several family members were among the seven dead.
Israeli military commentators said in media reports that the army was reinforcing its ground forces near Gaza after darkness fell, for a possible ground incursion.
Hamas, an Islamist movement that took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, defied the Israeli assaults, the fiercest in the coastal territory since the 1967 Middle East war.
A rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip killed an Israeli woman in the southern city of Ashdod today. The attack brought to four the number of Israelis killed by Palestinian rocket fire since Saturday.
Rocket fire from Gaza at Israel intensified immediately after Hamas declared the end of a truce on December 19th.
With six weeks to go to an election that polls suggest the more hawkish right-wing Likud party will win, Israel's centrist government says the offensive aims to put a stop to the rockets.
Israel declared areas around the Gaza Strip a "closed military zone", citing the risk from Palestinian rockets, and ordered out journalists observing a build-up of armoured forces.
Excluding the press could help Israel conceal preparations for a ground incursion following three days of air strikes that have caused chaos, turned buildings to rubble and left hospitals struggling to cope.
Wounded Gazans trickled one by one into Egypt and 10 trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed to cross into the blockaded territory. Border officials said about 30 Palestinians were expected to leave for treatment.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency said its visits to hospitals and medical centres had produced a "conservative" figure of at least 57 civilian dead.
Most Gazans in the enclave of 1.5 million people, one of the most densely populated areas on earth, stayed at home, in rooms away from windows that could shatter in blasts from air strikes on Hamas facilities. Residents of southern Israel ran for shelter at the sound of alarms heralding incoming rockets.
In Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, an air strike killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad, three other members of the militant group and a child as they stood in the street, medical workers said. Islamic Jihad said the commander was wanted by Israel.
Israeli aircraft also destroyed a laboratory building at the Islamic University, a significant cultural symbol in Gaza.
A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the offensive would go on until the population in southern Israel "no longer live in terror and in fear of constant rocket barrages".
A Hamas spokesman urged Palestinian groups to use "all available means" against Israel, including martyrdom operations" - meaning suicide bombings.
The Gaza operation and civilian casualties have enraged Arabs across the Middle East. Protesters burned Israeli and U.S. flags to press for a stronger response from their leaders.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose power runs only in the West Bank since his Fatah faction was ousted from Gaza by Hamas last year, had urged Hamas not to end its truce and has effectively accused it of bringing the onslaught on itself.
Nevertheless, Mr Abbas's chief negotiator said today the Palestinians had put US-backed peace talks with Israel, which have anyway made little progress, on hold.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded world leaders "use all possible means to end the violence" and "act swiftly and decisively to bring an early end to this impasse".
But US President George W. Bush's administration, in its final weeks in office, demanded Hamas agree to a ceasefire. A White House spokesman said the US "understands that Israel needs to take actions to defend itself".
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said during a visit to Turkey that "Israel must stop its killing operations against Palestinians". He called for an immediate ceasefire.
France said that European Union foreign ministers would meet in Paris tomorrow to discuss the Israeli attack on Gaza.
Reuters