Israel has shown no sign of slowing its seven-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as an increasing number of protestors around the world took to the streets to call for a ceasefire. Zhang Cheng has the details.

Israeli warplanes destroyed the homes of more than a dozen Hamas officials and bombed a mosque, a day after a deadly strike killed a prominent Hamas figure and most of his family.

The mosque destroyed on Friday was known as a Hamas stronghold, and the army said it was used to store weapons.

In what appeared to be a new Israeli tactic, the military called at least some of the houses ahead of time to warn inhabitants of an impending attack.

In some cases, it also fired a "noise maker" or "stun bomb" to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with powerful missiles.

At least eight Palestinians were killed Friday, including five children.

More than 400 Gazans have been killed and more than 1,700 have been wounded in the Israeli campaign.
 
The number of combatants and civilians killed is unclear.

Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have also died in the rocket attacks.

A group of Palestinians waited on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Friday, in an attempt to cross over to reach their families.

Palestinian Mohammed Nagib is one of them.

"We want Egypt to open the border and we want to go to our children. There are bombs and death in Gaza. Gaza is burning and we want to see our houses again. Our children have no food, no wheat or sugar. Also the electricity is cut. We are dying slowly."
 
Egypt has come under harsh criticism from Palestinians for not opening up the Rafah crossing, the only access to Gaza that does not go through Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel has kept open certain crossings into Gaza to allow humanitarian aid to pass through.

In Gaza, Palestinians queued for the UN food aid.
 
UN officials have said Gaza's one and half million residents are facing an alarming humanitarian situation under the constant Israeli bombardment.

Israeli officials said they are also allowing dozens of Palestinian holders of foreign passports to flee from the Gaza strip.
 
On Friday, nearly 300 Palestinians poured through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, including those who hold citizenship from U.S., Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
 
Joanne, who was leaving Gaza, said the situation was really bad there:

"Its very bad, there is no food no nothing and lots of people are dying and, where are you Arabs? Where are you? No-one's coming to help us and its very bad."

Elsewhere around the world, more and more protestors took to the streets to call for a ceasefire.
 
Protesters in Indian Kashmir, the Philippines and Indonesia have been out in force to march in protest at Israel's continued bombing of Gaza.

Riana Melanie, one of the protest leaders in Manila, said they were joining other countries in expressing their outrage.

"We are here, along with the rest of the world, to express our outrage against this genocidal attack by Israel against the Palestinian people."

Keyser Trad, of the Islamic Friendship Association, said that Israel has launched a man-made catastrophe in Gaza.

"This is a man-made catastrophe at the hands of the rogue state of Israel. Israel is committing state terror against innocent civilians."

Many Arab governments, such as Egypt, have been wary about protests at home over Israel's Gaza assault.

In Jordan, abour 30,000 Jordanians gathered at a stadium in Amman shouting their support for Gaza and calling for the abolition of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty signed in 1994.

Zhang Cheng, CRI news.