Gaza militants have fired rockets at the Jewish state's political and commercial hearts. Source: AAP
ISRAELI air strikes against Gaza have killed eight Palestinians and destroyed the Hamas government headquarters as the Jewish state called up thousands more reservists for a possible ground war.
After Palestinian militants fired rockets at the heart of Israel on Friday, about 180 air strikes were carried out overnight, according to Israeli television.
Palestinian medics said 38 Gazans had been killed and 345 wounded since Israel launched the aerial campaign on the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday, with at least four militants among the eight people killed in the latest raids.
Since the start of its operation, Israel's army says militants have fired more than 580 rockets over the border, 367 of which hit southern Israel and 222 of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.
In the same period, three Israelis have been killed and 13 injured, including 10 soldiers.
On Saturday, a rocket lightly wounded four Israeli soldiers, as police spokeswoman Luba Samri said rocket fire was down on previous days, with 16 counted in the morning.
The Israeli military said it had sealed off all main roads around Gaza and declared a closed military zone, in the latest sign it was poised to launch a first ground offensive on the Palestinian territory since the period between December 2008 and January 2009.
"The IDF (Israeli Defence Force) has targeted Ismail Haniya's headquarters in Gaza," an army spokesman told AFP, referring to the Hamas prime minister.
The army also said it had targeted Hamas government buildings, the interior ministry and the police compound, as well as training facilities for militants and "dozens of terror sites".
Haniya's Islamist government said four "barbaric Israeli" strikes "completely destroyed" its headquarters and that neighbouring houses were damaged.
Correspondents at the scene said the building, deserted for fear of attack, had been flattened and reduced to a pile of rubble but there were no reports of casualties.
Air strikes on Rafah in southern Gaza killed five people and three others died in an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said.
Saturday's violence came as Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem crossed into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a day after a solidarity visit by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil.
AFP correspondents in Gaza City reported a heavy bombardment in the city's west, after raids on the Hamas police headquarters in the same area and the government's internal security headquarters in the north.
Tanks were seen massing along the Gaza-Israel frontier on Friday, and a steady stream of reservists arrived throughout the day.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama reiterated American support for Israel's right to defend itself.
The assurance came during a phone conversation between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli ministers approved the call-up of as many as 75,000 reservists as Netanyahu held late evening talks in Tel Aviv with his key ministers, Channel 2 television reported.
Hamas's military wing said it fired a rocket at Jerusalem, and witnesses said another crashed into the sea off Tel Aviv on Friday.
The two rockets were the farthest Gaza militants have ever fired into Israel, exceeding even the 60 kilometres achieved by a rocket that hit the sea off Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, on Thursday.
Neither caused any casualties or damage, but they sowed panic in both of Israel's main population centres, setting off warning sirens and sending people scurrying to shelters.
United Nations and Palestinian officials said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would travel to the region within days to push for a truce.
"Ban went to the region during the last Israeli offensive against Gaza in 2009 and worked hard to end that conflict. He is looking to produce a truce and ceasefire this time as well," one senior UN diplomat said.
But as ground troops massed, there was no let-up in Israeli air attacks.
Washington has appealed to Egyptian leaders as well as to allies such as Turkey to use their sway with the Palestinians in a flurry of telephone diplomacy aimed at containing the crisis.
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