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EREZ CROSSING, Israel – Israel allowed several hundred Palestinians with foreign passports to flee Gaza on Friday, even as its warplanes bombed a mosque it said was used to store weapons and destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives.

AP – Palestinian holders of foreign passports wait on a bus after arriving on the Israeli side of the Erez

The evacuees told of crippling shortages of water, electricity and medicine, echoing a U.N. warning of a deepening humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip in the seven-day-old Israeli campaign. The U.N. estimates at least a quarter of the 400 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes on Hamas militants were civilians.

Jawaher Hajji, a 14-year-old U.S. citizen who was allowed to cross into Israel, said her uncle was one of them — killed while trying to pick up some medicine for her cancer-stricken father. She said her father later died of his illness.

"They are supposed to destroy just the Hamas, but people in their homes are dying too," Hajji, who has relatives in Virginia, said at the Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

President George W. Bush on Friday branded the Hamas rocket attacks an "act of terror," while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Hamas' leaders of holding the people of Gaza hostage.

"The Hamas has used Gaza as a launching pad for rockets against Israeli cities, and has contributed deeply to a very bad daily life for the Palestinian people in Gaza and to a humanitarian situation that we have all been trying to address," she said.

International calls for a cease-fire have been growing, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected in the region next week.

Bush said no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups.

"The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected," Bush said Friday in his weekly radio address, released a day early. "Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice — there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end."

Israel has targeted Hamas leaders in the past but halted the practice during a six-month truce that expired last month. Most of Hamas' leaders went into hiding at the start of the Israeli offensive on Dec. 27.

Israeli troops in bases in southern Israel are awaiting orders to invade Gaza.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, speaking in Syria, warned that any ground assault would lead Israel to "a black destiny of dead and wounded."

However, he said Hamas was "ready to cooperate with any effort leading to an end to the Israeli offensive against Gaza, lifting the seige and opening all crossings."

Israel appears to be open to the intense diplomatic efforts by Arab and European leaders, saying it would consider stopping its punishing aerial assaults if international monitors were brought in to track compliance with any truce with Hamas.

Israel began its campaign to try to halt weeks of intensifying Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza. The offensive has dealt a heavy blow to Hamas but has not stopped the rockets, which continue to strike deeper and deeper into Israel. Three Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed in the rocket attacks.

More than 30 rockets were fired into southern Israel on Friday, slightly injuring four. Sirens warning Israelis to take cover when military radar picks up an incoming rocket have helped reduce casualties in recent days.

Israeli TV showed video of a table set for the traditional Sabbath meal covered with shrapnel and broken glass.

After destroying Hamas' security compounds early in the operation, Israel has turned its attention to the group's leadership. Israeli warplanes on Friday hit about 20 houses believed to belong to Hamas militants and members of other armed groups, Palestinians said.

Israel also bombed a mosque it said was used to store weapons. The mosque was known as a Hamas stronghold and was identified with Nizar Rayan, the Hamas militant leader killed Thursday when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on his home. Rayan, 49, ranked among Hamas' top five decision-makers. The explosion killed 20 people, including all four of Rayan's wives and 11 of his children.

Israel's military said the bombing of Rayan's house triggered secondary explosions from the weapons stockpile there.

Fear of Israeli attacks led to sparse turnout at Friday's communal prayers at mosques throughout Gaza. Still, thousands attended a memorial service for Rayan, with throngs praying over the rubble of his home and the nearby destroyed mosque.

An imam delivered his sermon over a car loudspeaker as the bodies of Rayan and other family members were covered in green Hamas flags. Explosions from Israeli airstrikes and the sound of warplanes could be heard.

Following the prayers, mourners marched with the bodies, with many people reaching out to touch and kiss them.

"The Palestinian resistance will not forget and will not forgive," said Hamas lawmaker Mushir Masri. "The resistance's response will be very painful."

Israel also destroyed homes of more than a dozen Hamas operatives. Most appeared to be empty, but one man was killed in a strike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Fourteen other Palestinians died Friday — killed in airstrikes or dying of wounds from earlier violence, officials said. Among them were two teenagers as well as three children — two brothers and their cousin — who were playing in southern Gaza, according to Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain.

Maxwell Gaylard, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinians Territories, said 2,000 people have been wounded in the past week and a "significant number" of the dead were women and children. "There is a critical emergency right now in the Gaza Strip," he said.

The U.N. World Food Program began distributing bread in Gaza to Palestinian families. It said there had been a drastic deterioration in living conditions, with shortages of food, cooking gas and fuel, as well as frequent power cuts.

Israel denies there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and has increased its shipments of goods into Gaza. It says it has confined its attacks to militants while trying to prevent civilian casualties.

The military has called some houses ahead of time to warn inhabitants of an impending attack. In some cases, aircraft also fired sound bombs to warn away civilians before flattening the homes with their missiles, Palestinians and Israeli defense officials said.

Israeli planes also dropped leaflets east of Gaza giving a confidential phone number and e-mail address for people to report locations of rocket squads. Residents appeared to ignore the leaflets.

In all, Israel allowed 270 Palestinians to cross the border from Gaza to flee the fighting. The evacuees all held foreign passports, and were expected to join their families in the U.S., Russia, Turkey, Norway, Belarus, Kazakhstan and elsewhere.

Nashwa Hajji, Jawaher's 13-year-old younger sister, said her family left their home following Israeli warnings, but others refused. "People said, 'We don't want to go. We will die where we are,'" she said.

The Hajji family was notified Thursday by the U.S. consulate that it was being evacuated. After crossing Erez, they and others boarded buses taking them to Amman, Jordan. Hajji said she, her mother and five siblings would fly to Virginia from there.

The State Department said it had assisted 27 U.S. citizens and members of their immediate families to leave Gaza on Friday and make their way to Jordan and stood ready to help others. Department officials said earlier this week they were aware of roughly 30 Americans in Gaza but that there could be others.

Many of the evacuees were foreign-born women married to Palestinians and their children. Spouses who did not hold foreign citizenship were not allowed out.

"I feel happy and sad," said Caroline Katba, 15, A Russian citizen. "Happy, because I am going to Russia, and sad, because my father is left behind."

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush on Friday branded the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel an "act of terror" and outlined his own condition for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups.

Bush chose his weekly taped radio address to speak for the first time about one of the bloodiest Mideast clashes in decades. It began a week ago. Israeli warplanes have rained bombs on Gaza, targeting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has traumatized southern Israel with intensifying rocket attacks.

"The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected," Bush said. "Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice — there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end."

The White House released Bush's radio address a day early. It airs on Saturday morning.

Despite Bush's account of a U.S. leadership role, with time running out on his presidency, the administration seemed increasingly ready Friday to let the crisis in Gaza shift to President-elect Barack Obama. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed Bush on developments in Gaza, and she continued furious telephone diplomacy to arrange a truce. Yet, she said she had no plans to make an emergency visit to the region.

More than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed in the latest offensive. The U.N. estimated Friday that a quarter of the Palestinians killed were civilians. In their waning days in power, Bush and Rice have been working the phones with world allies.

Bush offered no criticism of Israel, depicting the country's air assaults as a response to the attacks on its people. The White House will not comment on whether it views the Israeli response as proportionate or not to the scope of rockets attacks on Israel.

"This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas — a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction," Bush said.

The president said Hamas ultimately ended the latest cease-fire on Dec. 19 and "soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis — an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President (Mahmoud) Abbas."

Hamas-run Gaza has been largely isolated from the rest of the world since the Islamic militants won parliamentary elections in 2006. Then Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, expelling forces loyal to the moderate Abbas.

Bush expressed deep concern about the humanitarian suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. U.N. officials say Gaza's 1.5 million residents face an alarming situation under constant Israeli bombardment, with hospitals overcrowded and both fuel and food supplies growing scarce.

"By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people," Bush said. "America has helped by providing tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, and this week we contributed an additional $85 million through the United Nations. We have consistently called on all in the region to ensure that assistance reaches those in need."

The White House has cautiously said Israel must be mindful of the toll its military strikes will have on civilians. Here, too, Bush blamed Hamas for hiding within the civilian population. "Regrettably, Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent days," he said.

International calls for a cease-fire have been growing. Bush promised to stay engaged with U.S. partners in the Middle East and Europe and keep Obama updated. Obama is receiving the same intelligence reports on Gaza that Bush is.

Rice has spoken to both Obama and his choice for secretary of state, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, about the situation at least once in the last week. Obama and Clinton have remained mum out of deference to Bush, who still has 18 days in office.

There have been growing calls for Rice to intervene with Israel in person amid rising international concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. Her decision to stay away will likely disappoint those calling for a more robust U.S. role, particularly as French President Nicolas Sarkozy intends visit the region next week.

In recent days, U.S. officials had said that a Rice trip to the Middle East, as a first stop on a long-planned visit to China next week, was under consideration. But those officials said Friday that Rice would stay in Washington. They spoke on condition of anonymity because an announcement is not expected before the weekend.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel sent more troops to the Gaza border Wednesday, rapidly moving forward with preparations for a possible ground offensive as the next stage of its military assault on the coastal territory's Hamas rulers.

AP – A Palestinian man places a green Islamic flag used by the militant group Hamas on the rubble of a destroyed

Israel rebuffed calls by world leaders for a truce, and Hamas also was cold to a cease-fire.

Instead, both intensified their fire. Israel bombed a mosque that it said was used to store rockets as well as vital smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border, and the Islamic militants hammered southern Israeli cities with about 60 rockets.

Israeli troops trudged between dozens of tanks in muddy, rain-sodden fields outside Gaza, assembling equipment, cleaning weapons and scrubbing out tank barrels. Their commanders moved forward with preparations for a ground operation, said an Israeli defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

The U.N. Security Council met Wednesday night to consider an Arab request for a legally binding resolution that would condemn Israel and halt the attacks. But the United States called a draft resolution "unacceptable" because it made no mention of halting the Hamas rockets. A vote on a resolution was not expected before Monday, Sudan's U.N. ambassador said.

Diplomatic efforts by U.S., European and Middle Eastern leaders appeared to be having little effect. A French proposal for a 48-hour cease-fire to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza failed to gain traction. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the time was not ripe to consider it.

A separate proposal by Turkey and Egypt, two of Israel's few allies in the Muslim world, also seemed to be attracting little serious study in Israel or Gaza, where Hamas leaders dismissed talk of a truce.

With a shrinking number of targets to hit from the air and top Hamas leaders deep in hiding, a ground operation seemed all the more likely. In five days of raids, Israeli warplanes carried out about 500 sorties against Hamas targets and helicopters flew hundreds more combat missions, a senior Israeli military officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

The government has approved the call-up of more than 9,000 reserve soldiers. Heavy rain clouds cover that could hinder ground forces were expected to lift Thursday.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the death toll was estimated at 320-390 and the number of injured at 1,500-1,900. Between 20 percent and 25 percent of the dead are either women or children, said Karen Abu Zayd, U.N. Relief and Works Agency commissioner.

Hamas says some 200 uniformed members of its security forces have been killed, and the U.N. says at least 60 Palestinian civilians have died.

In Israel, three civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire, which has reached deeper into Israel than ever. The sites of the missile hits have drawn curious crowds.

In the Negev desert city of Beersheba, people visited a school where a rocket made a direct hit Tuesday evening, slamming through the ceiling and showering debris on students' desks. A visitor illuminated by a shaft of light through the hole in the roof said with some astonishment, "This is my daughter's seat."

In Gaza, the sites of airstrikes have also attracted the curious and the defiant, including a Palestinian man who planted a green Hamas flag atop a mound of debris at a flattened mosque, its minaret still thrusting toward a stormy sky.

The Israeli military, which leveled the mosque Wednesday, said that it was being used as a missile storage site and that the bombs dropped on it set off secondary explosions. It was the fifth mosque hit in the campaign.

The chief of Israel's internal security services, Yuval Diskin, told a government meeting that Hamas members had hidden inside mosques, believing they would be safe from airstrikes and using them as command centers, according to an Israeli security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to share the information.

Other militants were hiding in hospitals, some disguised as doctors and nurses, Diskin said, according to the official.

Early Thursday, huge explosions shook Gaza City as Israeli planes bombed three government buildings and the parliament. Hospital officials said 25 wounded were evacuated from nearby houses.

Echoing Israel's cool response to truce proposals, a senior Hamas leader with ties to its military wing said that now was not the right time to call off the fight. Hamas was unhappy with the six-month truce that ended just before the fighting began because it didn't result in an easing of Israel's crippling economic blockade of Gaza.

Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu said that although Hamas leaders had been driven underground, the Gaza government was functioning and had met in the past few days.

"What our people want is clear: an immediate stop to all kinds of aggression, the end of the siege by all means, the opening of all border crossings, and international guarantees that the occupation will not renew this terrorist war again," Nunu said.

Israel's latest airstrikes concentrated on crushing the many smuggling tunnels under Gaza's southern border with Egypt. They provide a crucial lifeline, not just for Hamas rulers, but also for bringing in food and fuel for Gaza's people.

Holmes, the U.N. humanitarian chief, expressed concern about the fighting's impact on civilians. He said hospitals were struggling to cope with casualties and the lack of fuel deliveries had forced Gaza's power plant to shut down Tuesday.

But U.N. officials said the major need was grain and other food. Holmes said the Kerem Shalom crossing remained open and 55 trucks got through Tuesday and about 60 on Wednesday, mainly carrying food. He said Israel had been "cooperative in principle about these supplies, but we need to see more results."

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. officials were seeing "a good flow" of medical and food supplies into Gaza.

Israel and Egypt blockaded Gaza after Hamas fighters violently seized control of the territory in 2007 and the two nations have opened their borders only to let in limited humanitarian aid.

On Wednesday, several wounded Palestinians were taken across the Israeli and Egyptian borders for treatment, including a child bundled in blankets.

Gaza's southern smuggling zone was hit again Wednesday morning and evening in airstrikes that left vast craters over the collapsed underground passages. Hospital officials said two people were killed and 42 wounded in the bombing.

Diskin, the Israeli security chief, told a Cabinet meeting that the tunnel network had been badly damaged. Israel said more than 80 tunnels were destroyed. Several hundred tunnels ran under the border before Israeli warplanes began striking.

Hamas was trying to smuggle some of its activists to Egypt through still-passable tunnels, Diskin said.

Israel fears that opening border crossings would allow Hamas — which remains officially committed to Israel's destruction — to further strengthen its hold on the territory.

Moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival who controls only the West Bank, suggested he would not continue peace talks with Israel at any price. He said on Palestinian TV that the stalled talks had become useless and were not reaching any of the goals — namely the creation of a Palestinian state.

"Negotiation is not a goal by itself; it's a tool," Abbas said. "Unless it is a tool to achieve peace ... there is no need for it to continue."

Gaza's militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel on Wednesday evening, including one in the city of Ashkelon that was caught on video. It showed a man on a sidewalk ducking for cover along a wall as the missile exploded in a cloud of smoke a few steps behind him.

The city of 120,000 people 11 miles north of Gaza has been a frequent target.

Israel's rescue service said it had responded to 250 rocket attack scenes since Saturday and treated 48 wounded, most of whom had light injuries.

School was canceled in much of Israel's south because of the rocket threat. The 18,000 students at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, southern Israel's only university, were also told to stay home.

Beersheba, 19 miles from Gaza, had never before been within range of Gaza rockets, reflecting the increasing sophistication of what started out as homemade weaponry.

Now militants are firing weapons made in China and Iran that have dramatically expanded their range and put more than one-tenth of Israel's population in their sights, defense officials said.

In Gaza, two Palestinian medics were killed and two others were wounded when an Israeli missile hit next to their ambulance east of Gaza City, Palestinians said. The Israeli military said it did not know of the incident.