Tel Aviv - Most Israelis strongly support their country's deadly and destructive offensive against Hamas in Gaza.

The Israeli campaign against the radical Islamic movement ruling the strip, as well as its reprisal rocket attacks against southern Israeli cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod and Beersheba, are at the forefront of the Israeli media's reporting.

The large number of Palestinian civilian casualties, while mentioned, are pushed to the background.

Some critical voices can be heard, but they are a marginal minority.

Tel Aviv - Israel's ministry of defence refused to allow foreign correspondents to cross over from Israel into the Gaza Strip on Monday, despite a court ruling, a representative of the foreign media in Israel said.

The Israeli Supreme Court had ruled last week that eight foreign correspondents could enter the Strip if the Gaza crossings were open to allow humanitarian relief.

On Monday, however, Israeli officials, citing security risks, prevented the journalists from entering the Strip when the crossings were opened to allow 200 foreigners to leave the salient.

Tel Aviv  - The Israeli Army has launched "roof knocking" operations by which the occupants of the buildings in Gaza they about to bomb are warned beforehand, Israeli media reports said Friday.

Warnings, issued by telephone, voicemail or SMS, were intended as a means of limiting civilian casualties in the conflict, the Haaretz newspaper said. Civilians were given
10 minutes to leave the premises.

An Israeli Army spokesman declined to confirm the reports or respond to questions about such tactics being used in its ongoing confrontation with Palestinian militants.

"In some cases advance warnings are given to reduce the number of victims," he said.

Tel Aviv  - Hamas resumed its rocket attacks on southern Israel Friday morning, ending a lull during the night by launching at least seven Russian-type Grad missiles toward the southern Israeli coa

Tel Aviv  - The Israeli military denied Friday that it had renewed Israel's policy of targeted killings of top Hamas political leaders, saying the target of the airstrike that killed Nizar Rayan had been his house, which stored "large amounts of rockets and explosives."

Rayan's entire family was nearly wiped out when the Israel Air Force bombed his house Thursday in the crowded refugee camp of Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.

The Hamas leader, as well as all of his four wives and 11 of his 12 children were killed, Hamas said. The four-storey house was reduced to its bare concrete core, its front and top floors completely ripped off, leaving gaping holes that exposed the inside of those lower-level rooms still standing.

Tel Aviv, Jan. 2 : Israel has killed a top Hamas commander and members of his family, prompting the Palestine-based militant outfit to redirect its rocket missiles on Israel''s main nuclear plant.

A London Times report said that forty-nine-year-old Nizar Rayan, his two wives and four children were killed on Thursday after Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on Rayan's home.

Rayan was among the Hamas'' top five decision-makers in the Gaza Strip.