The Palestinian death toll from Israel's massive air campaign in Gaza has topped 100 as rockets fired by militants reached deeper into Israel and, for the first time in the fighting, struck from neighbouring Lebanon.
Gaza militants have fired more than 550 rockets against Israel in the offensive. The Israeli military says it has hit more than 1,100 targets, mostly what it identified as rocket-launching sites, bombarding the territory on average every five minutes.
In Gaza, an Israeli air strike hit the home of a well-known Islamic Jihad leader. Gaza health officials said strikes overnight killed eight people, raising the death toll to at least 98, and a later strike pushed the tally over 100, with 670 wounded, officials said.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, residents sifted through the remains of a four-storey building that was struck and scattered for cover as another air strike landed nearby.
Rocket fire continued in earnest from Gaza towards various locations in southern and central Israel, including toward Israel's international airport. The commercial centre of Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport also heard warning sirens but the rockets were intercepted and there was no disturbance to Israel's air traffic.
Hamas says it intends to fire rockets at the airport and warned foreign airlines to stop flying to Israel.
Israel has shot down at least 110 incoming rockets with its "Iron Dome" defence system.
Gaza rocket fire struck a filling station in southern Israel, seriously wounding one person and sending large plumes of smoke into the air.
In northern Israel, rocket fire struck near the Lebanese border and the military responded with artillery fire toward the source in southern Lebanon, a military spokesman said.
The Lebanese military said militants there fired three rockets towards Israel and the Israelis retaliated by firing about 25 artillery shells on the area.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said one of the militants firing the rockets was wounded and rushed to hospital. The Lebanese military said troops found two rocket launchers and dismantled them.
Southern Lebanon is a stronghold of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has battled Israel numerous times. However, recent fire from Lebanon has been blamed on radical Palestinian factions in the area and Hezbollah has not been involved in the continuing offensive.
Two Lebanon-based al Qaida-linked groups, the Battalions of Ziad Jarrah and the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, have claimed responsibility in the past for similar rocket attacks on Israel.
Israel launched the Gaza offensive to stop incessant rocket fire that erupted after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank and a Palestinian teenager was abducted and burned to death in an apparent reprisal attack.
Israel said the military was doing its utmost to prevent civilian casualties, calling inhabitants ahead of time to warn of imminent attacks. He said Israeli forces also fire "non-explosive munitions" at roofs as a warning and looks for people to leave before destroying a structure.
A spokesman blamed Hamas for the deaths of innocent bystanders by firing from heavily populated areas, and claimed Israel's military "uses its weapons to defend its civilians. Hamas uses its civilians to defend its weapons".
Military chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said Hamas was "sinking into its own disaster", while Israel was deploying its military might "not without reasoning, not without thinking, not without taking into account there are civilians in Gaza".
Israeli leaders are pondering a ground assault in Gaza to target Hamas. Such a move would likely involve a rise in Palestinian civilian casualties and put Israeli troops at risk as well. Israel has mobilised more than 30,000 reservists to supplement the potential ground operation.
During a ground incursion in early 2009, hundreds of civilians were killed and both sides drew war crimes accusations in a United Nations report.
Middle East envoy Tony Blair said efforts were being made to reach a truce.
"We are in a critical point," he said. "I think we have got to do everything we can to ... create a situation in which the people in Gaza and the West Bank and in Israel feel that this is not then going to recur and there is some genuine plan in place."