Israel obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of what the defense minister described Monday as a "war to the bitter end," striking next to the Hamas premier's home, and devastating a security compound and a university building.

Israeli airstrikes pounding Gaza are deepening the humanitarian crisis in an area that was already in deep distress, according to a United Nations aid official.

"The situation is absolutely disastrous," U.N. official Christopher Gunness told CNN on Sunday, as a second day of aerial attacks brought the death toll in Gaza close to 300. Hundreds more people have been injured.

Despite being responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviets in labor camps and purges, as well as throwing millions at the Germans, some without weapons, in WWII, former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin finished third in a recent poll by a TV station, state-run Rossiya.

Warplanes pressing one of the Israel's deadliest assaults ever against Palestinian militants widened their sights on Sunday, dropping bombs on smuggling tunnels that are a major weapons pipeline for the Gaza Strip's Islamic Hamas rulers.

Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.

They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.

But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid.

A single-file line of school children walked past a military checkpoint Sunday as a bomb-loaded truck veered toward them and exploded, ending the lives of 14 young Afghans in a heartbreaking flash captured by a U.S. military security camera.