At least seven Palestinians, including a 14-year-old girl, were killed by Israeli forces in northern Gaza today.
The deaths bring the toll over the week-long operation by Israel in the region to at least 65, the vast majority of them Palestinians.
A Palestinian man carries a wounded boy after he was shot by Israeli troops in Jabalya refugee camp north of Gaza Strip
Israel launched the offensive following a deadly rocket attack on Sderot that killed two small children last week. Three other Israelis have been killed in the fighting since then.
The Israeli raid is the largest in Gaza in four years of fighting. Army commanders said the operation could last weeks, while officials looked even further ahead - to Israel's planned evacuation of settlements from Gaza next year.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie condemned the raid, "which has led to a large number of martyrs and massive destruction", he said. "This ugly Israeli crime is taking place in full view of the world, and so far, we have not heard a strong word from the world community that can bring an end to this aggression."
Israel Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, who took a tour of Sderot today, said the raid had helped prevent some rocket attacks on the town and would continue in the coming days. "It will take time until we can be sure that we remove the threat of the Qassam rockets," he said. He added that Israel was trying to minimise civilian casualties.
"The Palestinian terror organisations are doing tremendous efforts to murder and to kill Israeli innocent people, babies, children, women, and we are targeting only the terrorists and the terror organisations," he said.
Israeli forces have cleared a five mile buffer zone in Gaza to move its towns out of range of the rockets, but militants keep trying. Two more rockets were fired at Sderot today, lightly injuring one man with shrapnel. Hamas claimed responsibility.
An Israeli aircraft fired a missile in the Jebaliya refugee camp, witnesses and hospital officials said. There were no reports of injuries.
An earlier helicopter missile strike killed four Palestinian militants as they tried to set off a bomb in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, the army said. A few hours earlier, Israeli forces targeted a local Hamas commander and another militant in a Gaza City air strike, the army said. The commander was seriously wounded in the attack.
In the town of Jebaliya a 14-year-old girl was killed by apparently stray gunfire as she baked bread in her garden with her mother, according to hospital officials and witnesses.