Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli aircraft attacked police and security installations across the Gaza Strip, killing scores of people in the deadliest raid in the coastal region since the 1967 War, security and medical officials said.

As many as 210 people were killed and 750 injured, including women and children, Mu’awia Hassanein, a Palestinian medical-services official in Gaza, said today. Ismail Haniya, a leader of Hamas, the militant Islamic movement that controls the Gaza Strip, called the air strike a massacre and vowed retaliation in a broadcast on Hamas al-Aqsa television.

At least 54 rockets were fired from Gaza today after the air strikes began, killing a man in Netivot, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a telephone interview. Sporadic protests in Arab communities across Israel have occurred, and arrests have been made, Rosenfeld said.

Israel’s strikes started at 11:30 a.m. and in two minutes hit more than 30 targets, most of them security compounds run by Hamas, said an official of the movement who declined to be identified. They came after a week in which dozens of Qassam rockets were fired into Israel following the Dec. 19 expiration of a six-month cease-fire with Hamas.

Israeli strikes continued on targets throughout the day, and three Palestinians were killed this evening, Hassanein said.

‘Take Time’

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the air strikes, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead” by the government, are designed to stop rocket attacks by Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza.

The operation is “likely to take time,” Olmert said today in a televised press conference, and warned Israelis that it “is likely the number of rockets will increase and they will hit farther into Israel than they have until now.”

The attack comes amid an election campaign in Israel, with voting scheduled for Feb. 10.

The Israel Home Front Command warned people within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of Gaza to stay close to air-raid shelters.

Most of the Palestinian dead were members of the Hamas security forces, including Police Chief Tawfiq Jaber and the head of the organization’s Security and Protection Service, Ismail al-Jabary, said Taher Noono, a spokesman for Hamas. Dead and wounded people were laying in the corridors of Gaza’s Shifa Hospital because the morgue couldn’t accommodate the bodies.

‘Taken By Surprise’

“Hamas was clearly taken by surprise and probably didn’t think Israel would launch such an operation just six weeks before elections,” said Shlomo Gazit, former chief of Israeli Military Intelligence and an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Gazit, the first government coordinator of operations in the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War, said this was the single bloodiest day he can recall in Gaza since Israel conquered the region in 1967.

While describing the Israeli strikes as an effective military exercise, Gazit criticized the government for not laying out clearer political objectives for the operation.

World leaders immediately called for restraint.

President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, who holds the rotating European Union presidency, said he “firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation, as well as the disproportionate use of force,” according to an e-mailed statement.

Abbas ‘Strongly Condemns’

“President Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemns this harsh aggression that Israel is waging now against the Gaza Strip,” Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority president, said in an e-mailed statement. “The president calls on the Israeli government to stop this aggression immediately and urges the international community to intervene.”

In the U.S., White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in an e-mailed statement from President George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, that “Hamas’s continued rocket attacks into Israel must cease if the violence is to stop.” He urged “Israel to avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”

Bush also spoke by telephone with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the latest violence, Johndroe said.

President-elect Barack Obama, on a 12-day vacation in Hawaii, “was monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, chief national security spokeswoman.

Egypt Treats Wounded

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he “condemns the Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip and blames Israel, as an occupying force, for the victims and the wounded.” Egypt opened the Rafah terminal on its border with Gaza so that the wounded could be treated in Egyptian hospitals, the statement said.

Hamas ruled out renewing a six-month cease-fire with Israel as the conflict started to escalate last week, with Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli border towns and retaliatory air raids on Gaza.

Hamas leaders said the cease-fire failed because Israel refused to remove restrictions on the flow of food, medical supplies and other goods through Gaza border crossings, and staged military operations. Israel says restrictions on trade with Gaza and the air strikes were in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.

Israeli and Hamas officials agreed to the cease-fire through Egyptian mediators in June without direct negotiations. Hamas canceled meetings in Cairo planned earlier this month that were aimed at renewing the truce.

Goods Restricted

Israel tightened restrictions on sending goods into Gaza after Hamas seized control of the seaside enclave 18 months ago. Hamas and the Iranian-supported Islamic Jihad group are classified as terrorist organizations by Israel, the U.S. and European Union.

Hamas, which has said it’s committed to Israel’s destruction, won parliamentary elections in January 2006. Israel has said it will not speak to the group unless it recognizes the Jewish state, ceases all attacks and abides by past agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The immediate reaction of the Gaza attacks on the Israeli stock market and economy isn’t likely to be severe, said Ira Slomowitz, a trader at Excellance Nessauh Securities & Investments Ltd. in Tel Aviv.

“There will be some reaction, but this kind of operation was long expected by the markets,” Slomowitz said in a telephone interview. “I expect to see real negative impact only if it widens out into a ground operation in which army reserves are called up, or if the Gaza rockets reach as far as Ashdod and strike its port, or hit Kiryat Gat where there is a big Intel plant.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at cbendavid@bloomberg.net; Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City through the Tel Aviv newsroomt .

Last Updated: December 27, 2008 15:20 EST