JERUSALEM AND GAZA CITY — Israel's aircraft pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Saturday and scattered leaflets warning of an escalation in attacks, but there was no sign that its forces had begun a major advance on the militant group's urban strongholds.
A senior Hamas commander and seven members of a Palestinian family were among those killed on the 15th day of Israel's thundering air and artillery assault, which also damaged a hospital. Palestinian militants fired 15 rockets into Israel, wounding three people.
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting sputtered as Egypt rebuffed a proposal to place international forces along its border to help prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza. Israel says the offensive is aimed at stopping rocket fire from Gaza and will continue until weapons pipelines into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave are cut off.
The warning of a "new phase" of the assault, which has killed more than 800 Palestinians, came in leaflets dropped over Gaza City and the southern town of Rafah and in automated calls to Palestinians' cellphones.
"The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will escalate the operation in the Gaza Strip," the messages said in Arabic. "The IDF is not working against the people of Gaza but against Hamas and the terrorists only. Stay safe by following our orders."
The leaflets urged residents not to help Hamas and to stay away from its members.
Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza a week ago, on the eighth day of airstrikes, and have moved to the outskirts of cities. Although there was no sign of an advance, the warnings heightened the panic that has gripped Gaza's 1.5 million people since the offensive began Dec. 27. Scores of families were seen loading mattresses and other belongings into and atop their cars and moving from outlying neighborhoods of Gaza City to places of refuge closer to the center.
In the day's bloodiest incident, seven members of the Abed Rabbo clan were killed in the late-morning shelling of their grocery store in a village, just east of the Jabaliya refugee camp, that bears the family's name.
Ziad Barqouni, an ambulance driver, said neighbors told him that the shelling had come from an Israeli tank several blocks away. Barqouni said he saw an Israeli helicopter firing into the village as he approached.
The Israeli army denied attacking the area at the time.
