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ISRAEL hammered Gaza with over 60 air strikes toay after Egyptian efforts to mediate a lasting truce collapsed in a hail of fire on Tuesday.
One of the Israeli air strikes targeted the home of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, killing his wife and daughter.
There was no information as to whether Mr Dief had been hit in the attack.
The fighting resumed on Tuesday after Israel withdraw its delegation from Cairo and launched air strikes on Gaza, claiming that Hamas had fired rockets at Israeli cities hours before a temporary ceasefire expired.
Since then at least 10 Palestinians have been killed and 68 wounded, Gaza Health Ministry official Ashraf al-Kidra said.
Three people — two women and a two-year-old girl — were killed in an air strike on a house in Gaza City.
Twenty-one people were wounded in a separate air strike that hit a building that houses offices of the Al-Aqsa TV station.
And in a strike on the southern Gaza town of Deir el-Balah a pregnant woman, three children and two men were killed, all members of one family, emergency services said.
They said that the woman had been nine months pregnant but medics were unable to save the child.
The Israeli military admitted that it carried out 60 air strikes on Gaza targets and claimed that Palestinians had fired at least 70 rockets at Israel since the truce collapsed.
The al-Qassam Brigades said that it fired 34 rockets into Israel throughout Tuesday, hitting Tel Aviv and the southern city of Beersheba, although Hamas insisted that it had not been the first to violate the ceasefire.
About 2,000 reserve soldiers who had been sent home two weeks ago when fighting seemed to have simmered down were called up for duty again yesterday, the Israeli military said.
Egyptian security officials said Cairo was still pressing the two sides to agree on a ceasefire.
United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki Moon condemned the breach of the ceasefire, adding he was “gravely disappointed by the return to hostilities” and urged the sides not to allow matters to escalate.
