The Arab League has called on the "international community" to end Israeli air strikes on Gaza and to protect Palestinians, ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting later Monday.

Israel pressed its campaign of punishing raids on Gaza for a seventh day on Monday, but held off from launching a threatened ground incursion as the world intensified efforts to broker a truce.

The Arab League "affirmed the necessity of urgent steps for an immediate end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and providing protection for the Palestinians," it said in a report to be submitted to the ministerial meeting.

Israeli "air strikes on Gaza have become a matter that cannot be met with silence any more," it said.

The pan-Arab organisation "demands that the international community intervene through its legal and humanitarian institutions to protect the Palestinian people."

(AFP)