United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos has called for a pause in hostilities in Libya to ease the crisis in the country.
Baroness Amos, a former British Labour minister, told the UN Security Council the pause would allow food, water, medical supplies and other aid to reach those who need it.
She said it would also allow humanitarian workers to evacuate people from other countries who remained in Libya and would give civilians a respite.
Her call came before at least four Nato air strikes hit the Libyan capital of Tripoli early today.
Libyan officials said four children were wounded, two of them seriously, by flying glass caused by blasts from air strikes in the Tripoli area overnight.
Officials showed foreign journalists a hospital in the Libyan capital where some windows had been shattered, apparently due to the blast waves from a Nato strike that toppled a nearby telecommunications tower.
The journalists were also taken to a government building housing the High Commission for Children that had been struck. The old colonial building had been damaged before in what officials said was a Nato strike on April 30.
"The direction of at least one blast suggests Gadafy's compound has been targeted," said one witness.
Col Gadafy's forces have launched a ferocious assault on Misrata where hundreds have been killed in weeks of fighting.
An opposition newspaper said Libyan rebels were leading an uprising in the suburbs of Tripoli after being supplied with light weapons by defecting security service officers.
Two months into a conflict linked to this year's uprisings in other Arab countries, rebels hold Benghazi and towns in the east while the government controls the capital and other cities.
The government says most Libyans support Col Gadafy, the rebels are armed criminals and al-Qaeda militants, and Nato's intervention is an act of colonial aggression by Western powers intent on stealing the country's oil.
Libyan state television reinforced that view, saying Nato warships bombed "military and civilian targets" in Misrata and in the adjacent town of Zlitan yesterday.
Heavy fighting was also reported south of Ajdabiya, a rebel-held town about 90 miles south of Benghazi, the rebel headquarters in the east.
In the capital, a member of the House of Lords warned of "genocide" if Libya's chaos continued.
Nazir Ahmed said he feared that if Col Gadafy's forces seized control of areas currently ruled by rebels, or vice versa, there could be widespread revenge killings.
Lord Ahmed said: "God forbid if any one side wins — for instance, if the government takes control of Benghazi, what would happen to all those rebels?
"And if they (the rebels) win, what will happen to the government supporters?"
Lord Ahmed spoke before a meeting with Libyan tribal chiefs as a part of a two-day private fact finding mission.
Agencies