GAZA CITY: Israel´s Gaza ground assault sent the Palestinian death toll soaring to 296 as UN chief Ban Ki-moon headed to the region Saturday to bolster efforts to clinch a truce.
The new peace effort came as eight members of a single family were killed in Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza, after Israel warned it was poised to broaden its ground operations.
Earlier, US President Barack Obama said he had telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to voice concerns about the crisis and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas met foreign leaders for talks.
In the face of Israel´s land, sea and air offensive, the Islamist movement Hamas remained defiant and warned the Jewish state it would "drown in the swamp of Gaza."And battles continued early Saturday morning, with the army saying a firefight had caused "several injuries" to soldiers.
The UN said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would fly to the region Saturday in a bid to end the violence.
In Gaza, after a relative lull during the day, violence picked up again in the evening, with intensifying tank shelling and air strikes killing more than a dozen people.
Among them were eight members of a single family killed by tank fire on their home in northern Gaza, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
Four children from the family were among the dead, joining another four children killed in several separate incidents of tank fire east of Gaza City, the youngest of them just two years old.
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