On the morning of the sixth day of Israeli army's operation "Pillar of Defense," Israel saw less rockets fired from Gaza, and the Israeli military said air strikes had degraded Palestinian militants' launch ability by about 40 percent.

Rockets fire from Gaza into Israeli cities and towns continued overnight and into the morning, with close to one million Israelis forced to remain close to bomb shelters. All schools are closed and officials have instructed residents living up to 40 km from Gaza to refrain from gathering in groups of more than 100 people.

Earlier in the morning, Israeli media reported that a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip made a direct hit on a home in the southern Israeli town of Gan Yavne, causing injuries. But later the report was denied by the police.

Israeli Air Force (IAF) and Navy aircrafts targeted some 80 militant sites throughout the Gaza Strip," including under-ground rocket launching sites, terror tunnels and training bases," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The repeated sorties and naval shells had inflicted "severe damage to the rocket launching capabilities of terror organizations operating out of the Gaza Strip," the IDF said.

Palestinian sources put the death toll at 91 since the operation began last Wednesday. It was unclear how many of the dead were militants.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due in the region on Tuesday.

Israeli ground troops and armored vehicles continued to build up along the border with the Gaza Strip on Sunday, amid reports that Egypt-brokered truce talks had broken down.

Though the army has not confirmed that it will enter the enclave, signs of an incoming invasion of the strip loom in the horizon, Israel's Channel 2 TV reported Sunday that talks failed to reach a ceasefire with Hamas.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is ready to talk about a ceasefire when Hamas stops launching rockets into its territory.

"We don't see any partner for any political settlement," Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters on Sunday, neither denying nor confirming that the truce talks had failed.

"Regarding operational considerations we should be ready to deploy whatever is needed to reach peace and quiet. So far we tried to make it, to achieve it, by surgical airstrikes, but we should be ready to deploy more troops in different types of operations in order to reach this goal (peace)," Yaalon said, hinting at the possibility of a ground operation.

Yaalon also confirmed that Israel is broadening its offensive in Gaza. "We are broadening the scope of targets, like Hamas government offices, the interior ministry compound, and so forth, but not broadening the use of different weapons," he told reporters.

While the military has completed preparations along the Gaza border, most senior Israeli ministers oppose a ground offensive in the coastal enclave, opting to continue airstrikes and negotiations on a cease-fire.