Gaddafi says he and his people prepared to die

Gaddafi's troops entered Benghazi's eastern quarters, having overrun the defense of the rebels. A missile attack has been conducted against the headquarters of the local defense committee. Eyewitnesses say that there were explosions in the area of the building of the Interim National Council. Anti-aircraft forces protecting the city from the eastern flank were destroyed during an air raid in the morning.

Armored vehicles of the governmental forces can be seen in the streets of Benghazi. The rebels are putting up concrete barriers on the roads to the court building, where the Interim National Council of the opposition is headquartered. Eight people were killed in the battle with pro-governmental forces in one of the western quarters, Al Jazeera reports.

Local residents are fleeing the city. Thousands of civilians are heading towards Tobruk, near Egypt's borders.

However, a spokesman for the Libyan government said that the army was not conducting military actions near Benghazi. Colonel Gaddafi sent an urgent message to the US Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, US, French Presidents Obama and Sarkozy and to British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"I have all Libyan people with me, and I am prepared to die and they are prepared to die with me," Gaddafi wrote.

To Sarkozy, Cameron, Ban Ki-moon:

"Libya is not yours the resolutions of the UN are invalid. This is injustice it is a clear aggression. You have no right to interfere in our internal affairs. We would never fire one bullet against our people," Gaddafi wrote.

Libyan state television says Abdel Fatah Yunes, the interior minister who defected to the rebels at the beginning of March, had returned to the Gaddafi camp and to his old job. There was no immediate confirmation of General Yunes' alleged about-turn, Telegraph reported.