At least 210 dead as Israel hammers Hamas-run Gaza

Israel hammered Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 210 people in retaliation for rocket fire in one of the bloodiest days of the decades-long Middle East conflict.
Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said "Operation Cast Lead," which has also left some 300 wounded, would continue "as long as necessary."
"The battle will be long and difficult, but the time has come to act and to fight," he said.
Following the mid-morning attacks, in which some 60 aircraft struck about 50 targets over the span of just a few minutes, Hamas swiftly responded by firing several dozen rockets into the Jewish state, killing one Israeli.
The Islamist movement that rules Gaza warned Israelis living near the Palestinian enclave to "prepare the funeral shrouds."
Air strikes continued sporadically throughout the day and into the evening, with no immediate reports of further casualties.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate halt to the violence , as did the European Union, Russia, Britain and France.
The United States said Israel should avoid causing civilian casualties , while several Middle Eastern states and the Arab League, which is considering a Qatari call for an emergency summit, slammed Israel for the strikes.
In Gaza, thick clouds of smoke billowed into the sky. Mangled, bloodied and often charred corpses littered the pavement around Hamas security compounds, and frantic relatives flooded hospitals.
Ambulances and private cars rushed the wounded and dead to Al-Shifa hospital, where the morgue was filled to capacity and bodies were piled on the blood-stained floors in the corridors as the wounded screamed in pain.
"My brother was still alive when he arrived here, and was talking to me but no one could help him. He died," said Ahmed al-Gharabli, his voice shaking and tears streaming down his cheeks. His brother Baha was a policeman.
Medics said civilians had been hit, but the majority of the victims appeared to be members of Hamas, branded a terror group by Israel and the West.
At least 210 Palestinians were killed and some 300 others wounded, said Dr Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
Hamas said the strikes destroyed its security structures across Gaza and killed three senior officials -- the Gaza police chief, the police commander for central Gaza and the head of the group's bodyguard unit.
The bombardment -- which marked one of the bloodiest single days in the 60-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- came after days of spiraling violence, with militants firing rockets and Israel vowing a fiery response.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told AFP from Saudi Arabia that he was in "urgent contact" with numerous countries urging them to press for an end to "the cowardly aggressions and massacres in the Gaza Strip."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak , who brokered a six-month Israeli-Hamas truce that expired on December 19, slammed the "Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip and blames Israel, as an occupying force, for the victims and the wounded."
He ordered the opening of the Rafah crossing -- the only one that bypasses Israel -- to help with the evacuation of the wounded.
The bombardment set off angry demonstrations in Israel's Arab towns and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
It came less than two months ahead of Israeli elections on February 10.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the head of the governing Kadima party and one of the front-runners for the premier's chair, said that "today there is no other option than a military operation."
Adding that the strikes were targeting "the terror infrastructure in Gaza," she told AFP that "right now what we are doing is changing the reality on the ground and sending Hamas a message."
Violence in and around Gaza has flared since the truce ended and it escalated dramatically on Wednesday, when militants fired more than 80 rockets and mortar rounds in response to a deadly air strike on Gaza.
Israel has generally responded to attacks by tightening the blockade it imposed after Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to Abbas in June 2007. But on Friday it allowed the delivery of dozens of truckloads of humanitarian aid.
Hamas is sworn to destruction of the Jewish state and has warned that it would retaliate to a major Gaza operation by resuming suicide bombings inside Israel. The last such attack claimed by Hamas was in January 2005.