At least 41 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed in one of the deadliest days of fighting in Gaza since troops withdrew in 2005.

Medical staff said at least eight were children and up to 16 were militants. Israel said most were militants. Seven Israeli troops were lightly injured.

Israel says it wants to stop rocket attacks from Gaza, but about 50 hit Israel on Saturday, injuring five.

The Palestinian leader said the Israeli raids were “more than a holocaust”.

Mahmoud Abbas was apparently alluding to controversial remarks made on Friday by Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai, who said Palestinians risked a “shoah” – the Hebrew word for a big disaster as well as for the Nazi Holocaust.

Mr Vilnai’s colleagues insisted he had not meant “genocide”.

But Mr Abbas told reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah: “It’s very regrettable that what is happening is more than a holocaust. We tell the world to see with its own eyes and judge for itself what is happening.”

Hamas’s exiled leader Khaled Meshaal went further.

“Israeli actions in Gaza since Wednesday is the real Holocaust,” he said in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

He said Israel was “exaggerating the Holocaust and using it to blackmail the world”.

On one occasion, a house east of the Jabaliya refugee camp was struck – two children, a brother and sister, were killed.

Later, a 15-year-old girl and her 16-year-old sister were also killed.

In another attack, a mother was killed as she was preparing breakfast for her children, medical workers said.

“We are in the middle of a total war. We hear the rockets and the explosions everywhere… we cannot leave our homes,” a Jabaliya resident, Abu Alaa, told the AFP news agency.

“They’re shooting at everything that moves.“

On Wednesday a rocket fired by Hamas militants killed an Israeli student in the southern town of Sderot, the first such death in nine months.

Palestinian militant leaders say they are responding to Israeli attacks.

More than 70 Palestinians have been killed in the violence since Wednesday.