260 children, 230 women among 900 killed in Gaza

Nine hundred people were killed, including 260 children and 230 women along with 4,600 wounded in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched air strikes on Saturday, the health ministry in the coastal enclave said late Tuesday.
Israeli air strikes continued to hammer Gaza Tuesday, razing entire districts and filling morgues with dead Palestinians.
Across the barrier wall enclosing the coastal enclave, Israeli soldiers collected the last of Israel's dead four days after Palestinian resistance movement Hamas gunmen rampaged through towns, killing hundreds of people in the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel's history.
Hamas militants are holding scores of Israeli soldiers and civilians hostage. Israel's defence minister said its forces were gearing up for a ground offensive.
On Israel's northern border, a salvo of rockets was fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel, prompting Israeli shelling in return.
Israel's embassy in Washington said the death toll from the weekend Hamas attacks had surpassed 1,000.
The United Nations said more than 180,000 Gazans had been made homeless, many huddling on streets or in schools.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, speaking to soldiers near the Gaza fence, said: "Hamas wanted a change and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be."
"We started the offensive from the air, later on we will also come from the ground. We've been controlling the area since Day 2 and we are on the offensive. It will only intensify."
In Gaza, a municipal building was hit while being used as an emergency shelter. Survivors there spoke of many dead.
"No place is safe in Gaza, as you see they hit everywhere," said Ala Abu Tair, 35, who had sought shelter there with his family after fleeing Abassan Al-Kabira near the border.
Two members of Hamas' political office, Jawad Abu Shammala and Zakaria Abu Maamar, were killed in an air strike in Khan Younis, a Hamas official said.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Israeli strikes had since Saturday destroyed more than 22,600 residential units and 10 health facilities and damaged 48 schools.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said civilians had been harmed in Israeli strikes on tower blocks, schools and UN buildings.
"International humanitarian law is clear: the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects remains applicable throughout the attacks," he said.