Live blog: Gaza under attack

Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces have broken out inside the Aqsa Mosque, reported The Anadolu Agency.

A group of people gather at the United Nations building in Beirut. Lebanon to take part in a rally against Israel's attacks on Gaza.

The Gaza Strip's Wafah Hospital has been destroyed in Israel's attack last night, reported Joe Catron from the ground.

The patients were evacuated to a medical clinic in central Gaza, which Catron says is now referred to as a ‘medical hotel’ because so many patients have been moving in and out of it.

The makeshift hospital does not offer any services, but health care professionals and others go there to provide their services.

You can read Catron's piece about the Hospital before it was destroyed. 

Large numbers of Israeli soldiers have been arriving in buses and gathering at the southern border of Gaza, MEE sources on the ground reported. 

An Israeli air strike has targeted al-Jawhara building in Gaza. 

Noor Harazeen, a journalist in Gaza says: "The Israeli warplanes targeted an apartment in Al-Jawhara building and our media agency is located just next to it .. I thought we journalists were protected! NOT if you are a Palestinian journalist."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said at an emergency cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv that he has directed the army to prepare for the possibility of a significant  expansion of the ground operation.

He explained that the decision to launch the operation was made after Hamas continued to fire on Israel even after Israel accepted both an Egyptian cease-fire proposal on Tuesday, and a UN initiative for a humanitarian lull in the fighting on Thursday.

“We decided to launch the action after we tried all the other ways, and with an understanding that without this operation the price we will have to pay later would be much higher,” he said.

Netanyahu said that diplomatic efforts have created a space for Israel to act systematically and with force against the terrorist organizations.

“The supreme consideration guiding us is to restore security to the civilians and quiet to the state,” he said.

“There is not a more moral army than the IDF, and we do not want to harm even one innocent civilian. Not even one. We are operating only against terror targets.”

The families of Israeli diplomats in Turkey are being reportedly evacuated after violent demonstrations took place in front of the Israeli embassy in Ankara and the consulate in Istanbul. 

Three Palestinian children have been killed in an Israeli shelling in northern Gaza Strip.

"The three children were killed in artillery shelling of a residential compound in northern Gaza Strip," Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qodra told Anadolu Agency.

He said that the bodies of the three children – two brothers and a sister – had been totally burnt in the attack.

The latest fatalities raise the death toll among Palestinians in Gaza to 264.

The administrative building of Bayt Hanoun Hospital has been targeted by Israeli air strikes, said spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qudra via Twitter. 

Khaled Meshal, Hamas's political bureau chief, has said, "We are ready for all possibilities," al-Aqsa TV reported. 

The situation in Gaza is currently relatively quiet, although Israeli air-strikes continue to target homes and roads.

For live updates, you can watch The Anadolu Agency's live stream here. 

Chairwoman of leftist Meretz Party Zahava Gal-On has criticised the Israeli government's decision to launch a ground operation into the Gaza Strip.

Gal-On, a member of Knesset, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has bowed to pressures from hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett to "drag Israel into the bloody Gaza swamp", according to Israel Radio.

The Meretz leader has also called on greater efforts to reach a ceasefire.