Israel appears closer to ground maneuver

Gaza militants on Monday fired at least 41 rockets at southern Israel, killing one and injuring over a dozen, although Israeli officials said that the Gaza-ruling Hamas movement has suffered a serious blow from Israel's massive air raids.

Israeli soldiers are seen at a staging area near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Monday,  Dec. 29, 2008.

The air strikes has so far killed over 310 people and injured over 1,000 more, generating international condemnation and calls for an immediate end to the bloodshed.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak stressed that the current campaign is "an all-out war against Hamas and its kind," using a term he reportedly employed in the past to describe a long-term struggle against Israel's Islamist enemies.

Revealing that the defense establishment spent months preparing for the Gaza operation, the former IDF chief of the general staff said that it "will be widened, deepened as we see fit."