Israel prepared to broaden Gaza offensive

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organisations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he told his cabinet.

However, Mr Netanyahu gave so specifics and made no mention of the possibility of a ground offensive.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is due to travel to Egypt tomorrow for talks with the Egyptian president on the conflict.

Egypt has been working to reinstate a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants after one it brokered in October collapsed.

Meanwhile, the head of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, and a group of Arab foreign ministers will visit Gaza on Tuesday to show solidarity with residents.

Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in Gaza from air and sea for a fifth straight day, while Hamas continued its rocket fire against Israeli cities.

Hamas rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed this morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon.

Two rockets were also fired at Tel Aviv but were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air shield.

At least 51 Palestinians, including 14 children, have been killed in Israel's raids, Palestinian officials said.

More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel launched intensive air strikes on Wednesday.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued into the early hours of the morning, with warships shelling from the sea.

A Gaza media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding six journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News.

"As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn't worth it to cease fire," Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said on Twitter.

"If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity".

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: "This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel's blows Hamas "is still strong enough to destroy the enemy".

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut today as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv yesterday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday.

It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal city, some 70km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

US and Britain in call for end to violence

Israel's operation has drawn Western support for what US and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defence, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides," in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Mr Cameron said.

London was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Mr Cameron had urged Mr Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the US would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defence.

Speaking in Thailand at the start of the three-day Asian tour Mr Obama said: "There's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders".

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees."

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