Toll in Gaza hits 341 on day 12 of Israel campaign

The Gaza death toll hit 341 on Saturday as Israeli warplanes intensified their bombardment and troops pressed a ground assault on the 12th day of a major confrontation with Hamas.

The latest incident saw two men, aged 25 and 31, killed in an air strike near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

And another two people were killed in Zeitun, east of Gaza city, raising the number of Palestinians killed on Saturday to 45.

In southern Israel, a Bedouin man was killed and four family members wounded, two of them children, when a rocket hit their desert encampment not far from Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona, police said.

His death raised to three the number of Israelis killed since the conflict began on July 8, including a soldier who was reportedly killed by friendly fire.

Among those killed in Gaza were five members of the same family, including a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old, who died in a strike on a house in the northern town of Beit Hanun, Qudra said.

Earlier, Qudra also reported five bodies had been pulled from a home hit by an Israeli air strike in Khan Yunis.

So far, more than 2,385 Palestinians have been wounded in the biggest confrontation in and around Gaza since Operation Cast Lead, a bloody 22-day offensive which ended in January 2009.

Israeli troops began a ground offensive in parts of Gaza late on Thursday, starting a new phase in the operation which it said was aimed at destroying tunnels used by the territory's dominant power, Islamist movement Hamas.