Israel warns Gaza attacks will go on

And there were reports Israel was considering a temporary “humanitarian” truce to allow vital aid supplies into the area.

But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the current, aerial phase of the operation was just “the first of several” that have been approved.

Palestinian militants meanwhile kept up their rocket assaults on Israeli border communities, despite a fourth day of Israeli air attacks and a refusal by Egypt to bail them out.

Israeli warplanes smashed a Hamas government complex, the largest one hit so far, dumping the biggest single load of bombs on the buildings, which had been evacuated since the bombardment began Saturday. Israel also hit security installations and the home of a top militant commander.

More than 370 Palestinians have now been killed since Saturday. Most were members of Hamas security forces at least 64 civilians also died. Among them were two sisters, aged four and 11, killed in an airstrike on a rocket squad in northern Gaza today.

During brief lulls between airstrikes, Gazans ventured into the streets to buy good and collect belongings from homes they had abandoned after the attacks started.

The campaign has brought a new reality to southern Israel, too. Militants, battered but unbowed, pressed on with their rocket and mortar assaults, killing three Israeli civilians and a soldier and bringing a widening circle of targets into their sights with an arsenal of mightier weapons.

The military estimated that one-tenth of Israel’s population of seven million people are now within rocket range, with the battles shifting closer to Israel’s heartland. Of the four Israelis killed since the operation began Saturday, all but one were in areas that had not suffered fatalities before.

Fires blazed across the Gaza Strip’s main city, Gaza City, where five government buildings were badly damaged in air attacks today. Rescue workers said 40 people were injured when planes dropped more than a dozen bombs on the government compound.

Israel’s air force initially hammered security facilities, then broadened to weapons-making and storage facilities, the homes of militant field operatives, and government buildings that are the symbols of Hamas’ power.

The offensive comes on top of an Israeli blockade of Gaza that has largely kept all but essential goods from entering the coastal territory since Hamas violently seized control June 2007 from forces loyal to the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Egypt, which has been blockading Gaza from its southern end, has come under pressure from the rest of the Arab world to reopen its border with the territory because of the Israeli campaign. Egypt has let in some of Gaza’s wounded allowed humanitarian supplies to enter the territory.

But Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said today that his country would not throw open the crossing unless Abbas regains control of the border post. Mr Mubarak fears the presence of a neighbouring Islamic ministate in Gaza would fuel more Islamic dissidence in Egypt.

Abbas has been in peace talks with Israel over the past year. While there have been no signs of an imminent deal, Israel has made it clear that no future accord could be implemented as long as Hamas is in power in Gaza.

Israel has allowed a trickle of aid through its cargo crossings with Gaza despite the military campaign, agreeing to allow 100 trucks in today.

The Israeli side of the border area was declared a closed military zone yesterday throwing a veil over operations in the area. But with thousands of ground troops, backed by tanks and artillery, massed on the border, and the air force knocking off target after target, the big question looming over the operation was whether it would expand to include a land invasion.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak reiterated that the operation would “expand as needed ... to restore tranquility to (Israel’s) south and deliver a blow to Hamas so the rocket fire and other operations against the citizens and soldiers of Israel stop.”