Gaza/Tel Aviv - After a week of relentless Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip, Israeli ground troops along the Gaza border are readying for an order for an incursion.

Since Israel launched its offensive shortly after 11 am (0900 GMT) last Saturday, its air force has destroyed more than 700 targets, a military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv said Friday.

At least 100 smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, as well as police stations, offices, houses, vehicles and rocket launching-, storing- and production sites belonging to the radical Islamic Hamas movement and its activists, were hit, many more than once.

After one week, the Israel Air Force's "pool of targets are close to exhaustion," one Israeli government official said.

Vienna - Around 6,000 protesters gathered in Vienna on Friday to protest Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to police estimates, in a demonstration largely organized by Muslim groups.

While most signs carried by demonstrators read "Stop the massacre in Gaza," some in the crowd in Vienna's city centre had placards saying: "I have a dream: A world without Israel."

"Many people must scream," said Reyep Imanz, a 24-year-old immigrant from Turkey. "Maybe Israel's president hears us and calls back his army."

Some 400,000 Muslims live in Austria, accounting for over 4 per cent of the population. Many of them have their roots in Turkey and the former Yugoslavia.

Beirut  - Thousands of protesters from various Palestinian and Lebanese groups demonstrated Friday in front the Egyptian Embassy in the capital Beirut to protest what they described as "the Arab stand" towards the Gaza attack.

"Where are the Arabs? What is this silence?", read one of the placards carried by the protesters.

The crowd carried coffins wrapped in black and Palestinian flags while they moved through the streets from the United Nations headquarters towards the Egyptian embassy.

The demonstrators staged a sit-in in front of the UN headquarters in downtown Beirut.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israel pressed on with its relentless air raids against Hamas on the seventh day of its Gaza offensive, striking some 20 targets of the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza early Friday, a military spokeswoman said.

The military imposed a one-day closure on the West Bank which began at midnight and police were on high alert to prevent unrest during Friday's Muslim prayers at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque. Police limited entry to the Old City to Muslim men aged 50 or older from Israel or East Jerusalem, with Israeli identity cards.

Israel also announced that it would permit some 400 foreigners living in Gaza to leave the war zone on Friday, after receiving requests and coordinating with foreign embassies, Israel Radio reported.

Gaza City - A senior Hamas leader, his wife and his eight children were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip Thursday, hospital officials confirmed.

Nizar Rayan and his family were killed when his house was struck in the northern Gaza refugee camp of Jabaliya, Kamal Odwan hospital in the refugee camp confirmed.

He was the most senior Hamas leader killed so far in six days of ferocious Israeli airstrikes. Most top leaders of the movement have gone into hiding.

Beirut  - A Lebanese parliamentary leader on Thursday accused Israel of trying to end "resistance" in the Gaza Strip and urged Arab states to cut diplomatic ties to Israel.

Speaking before a meeting of the Arab Parliamentarian Council, Shiite House Speaker Nabih Berri called for assistance to help Palestinians facing an Israeli onslaught.