Things turned incredibly personal in the Libyan civil war, after a NATO airstrike on Tripoli, the capital, killed one son and three grandchildren of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The grandchildren were all under 12.

Gadhafi had, just a few hours earlier, issued a call for a cease-fire and negotiations between the warring sides. The son killed, Seif Al-Arab Gadhafi, was a younger of his father's seven sons who had spent time in Germany before returning to his homeland not long ago. Also in the house were Gadhafi himself and his wife; both were uninjured. Heavy bursts of gunfire were heard in response.

The airstrike was the first, after a series of hundreds and hundreds during the course of a month, to target Gadhafi and his family. Previous strikes had targeted government troops and positions, especially in the areas of the opposition capital, Benghazi, and the opposition-held by fiercely besieged western city of Misrata.

NATO officials welcomed the cease-fire proposal but reminded observers that it was the latest of several such calls by Gadhafi, all of which had been followed by more fighting on his part.

Earlier, the war spilled over into neighboring Tunisia, as government forces attacked an opposition-held town on the Libya-Tunisia border and continued the attack into Tunisian territory.