The military said in a statement that it had “maintained a high professional and moral level” during the 22-day war, which ended Jan. 18, though it faced “an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians whilst taking cover” among Palestinian civilians and “using them as human shields.”

Israel mounted its attack on Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, with the stated purpose of preventing rocket fire on southern Israel from Gaza. But the offensive set off international outrage and condemnation as the Palestinian death toll grew, as United Nations facilities and medical teams came under fire and as allegations emerged of improper use of white phosphorus weapons.

This month, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed an internationally renowned judge, Richard J. Goldstone, to lead a high-level mission to investigate allegations of war crimes during the Gaza war.

Though Mr. Goldstone, a former judge in South Africa and a former United Nations chief prosecutor for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, has said he will investigate possible violations by both Israel and Hamas, officials in Jerusalem have said it is unlikely that Israel will cooperate with the mission.

Gaza health officials said more than 1,300 Palestinians died during the war, but Israel disputes Palestinian claims that most of them were noncombatants. By the Israeli military’s count, 1,166 people were killed, of whom 295 were noncombatants, 709 were what it called Hamas terrorist operatives and 162 were men whose affiliations remain unidentified.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza put the number of dead at 1,417: 926 civilians, 236 combatants and 255 police officers. Israel says that about 400 Gazans die of natural causes every month, possibly accounting for the discrepancy in numbers.

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the fighting, among them 10 soldiers and 3 civilians.

Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the Israeli military’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Wednesday that the army “discovered a small number of mistakes, not many, among the dozens of incidents we investigated, and we have already examined them and learned lessons from them.”

General Harel added that the army had “not found a single case of an Israeli soldier deliberately hurting innocent Palestinian civilians, whether from the land, air or sea.” If any such case was discovered, he said, it would be treated with the full severity of the law.

Describing the mistakes as “unfortunate” and ascribing them to “intelligence or operational errors,” the military said such incidents “were unavoidable and occur in all combat situations, in particular of the type which Hamas forced” on the army “by choosing to fight from within the civilian population.”

Three separate investigations whose conclusions were presented on Wednesday dealt with specific events that were brought to the army’s attention by the news media or other means. Two others examined general subjects, namely the use of weapons containing phosphorus and the destruction of infrastructure and buildings by ground forces.

In one case, where Israeli shells killed up to 40 Palestinians outside a United Nations school in the Jabaliya refugee camp, north of Gaza City, on Jan. 6, the soldiers were responding, according to the military, to mortar shells fired by militants in the vicinity of the school. Israel says that 12 to 17 Palestinians were killed, 5 of whom were militants.

Soon after the shelling, however, Palestinian hospital officials in the Jabaliya area told a reporter for The New York Times that 40 people had been killed, among them 10 children and 5 women. At a mass funeral in Jabaliya the next day, the reporter was unable to count the bodies in the press of the mourning crowd but described seeing the bodies of the children laid out in a long row on the ground. One of the mourners, Huda Deed, said she had lost nine members of her extended family, ages 3 to 25.

Another case investigated by the military involved the Daia family, 21 of whom were killed when their home, in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City, was hit in an Israeli strike on Jan. 6. Expressing regret for the attack, a senior military official said the army had intended to hit the house next door, which was a weapons storage site; the Daia home was struck because of an “operational error.”

Israel has already come under heavy criticism for its use of white phosphorus in heavily populated Gaza. White phosphorus is a standard, legal weapon in armies, long used as a way to light up an area or to create a thick white smoke screen to obscure troop movements. But it can cause horrific burns, so using it against civilians, or in an area where many civilians are likely to be affected, can be a violation of international law.

Last month, Human Rights Watch issued a report citing six cases of improper use ofwhite phosphorus by Israel and calling them evidence of war crimes.

The military said it used two types of munitions containing white phosphorus, incendiary shells for marking and range-finding, which it said were used in limited quantities, and nonincendiary types of munitions used to create smoke screens. But officials said that both types were used in open areas only, in accordance with the limitations of international law.

The military noted that these investigations, conducted by officers with the rank of colonel, were not a replacement for the central operational army investigation of the entire campaign, which will be concluded by June.

The findings are not exhaustive. For example, the case of the Samouni family, some 30 of whose members were killed when the building in which they had sought shelter in Zeitoun was hit on Jan. 5, remains unresolved. Maj. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said that the case was still being examined, and that it was not yet clear if the Samounis were killed by Israeli fire.

Israeli and international human rights groups rejected the Israeli military’s internal investigations as inadequate. Human Rights Watch called Wednesday’s statement by the military “an insult to the civilians in Gaza who needlessly died.” The army leadership, the group said, is “apparently not interested, willing, or able to monitor itself.”

NYTimes.com

Hamas security forces also reported Saturday’s strikes. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli air force struck two “smuggling tunnels” on the southern Gaza border and one “weaponry storage site” in Gaza City, a military spokesman told CNN.

“In all strikes, a hit was identified,” the spokesman said, adding that the strikes were in response to six rockets targeting Israeli since Saturday morning.

According to the Israeli military, more than 100 rockets, mortar shells and missiles have been fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in Gaza since Hamas leaders announced a cease-fire on January 18.

Israel also announced a cease-fire and pulled its troops out of Gaza in January, ending a three-week military campaign that the Israeli military said was aimed at halting the rocket fire.

Egypt has been trying to broker a broader cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Israel is demanding that Hamas release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit before it fully reopens the border crossings with Gaza.

Hamas has rejected discussing Shalit’s release as part of any cease-fire negotiation.

Israel launches airstrikes into Gaza – CNN.com

Meanwhile, rockets were fired into Israel on Friday, causing no damage or injuries, and Israeli warplanes struck the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, wounding two Popular Resistance Committee fighters.

Israel and Hamas had a six-month cease-fire mediated by Egypt starting last June, but it was repeatedly violated and after it ended Israel launched a three-week air, land and sea assault on Gaza aimed at stopping the rockets and weakening Hamas. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed and thousands of buildings and homes destroyed. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, also died.

The new prospective accord, again being mediated by Egypt, is aimed at rebuilding Gaza after the war and involves both reconstruction and reconciliation between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, according to Ismael Ridwan, a Hamas spokesman, who spoke by telephone after extensive talks between Egyptian and Hamas officials.

He said among the materials that would be allowed to flow into Gaza in the new arrangement were cement and steel, which Egypt would monitor. Those materials are desperately needed for rebuilding, but the agreement would not allow pipes, cables and chemicals that Israel fears could be used for bombs.

Israel wanted to include the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, seized and held by Hamas since the summer of 2006, but Hamas said that would happen only in a separate, if linked, deal that frees hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The director of Hamas’s political bureau in Syria, Khaled Meshal, said that there was no agreement about Corporal Shalit and that Israel was trying to link his release with opening the border crossings into Gaza.

“We are opposed to that, and we have made that clear to the Egyptian authorities,” Mr. Meshal said in an interview on Libyan television. He was in Tripoli to thank the Libyan leader, Muammar el-Qaddafi, for his support of Hamas during the Gaza conflict.

Mr. Meshal’s deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk, told the Egyptian state news agency late Thursday that an 18-month truce with Israel had been agreed on and that it would include opening the crossings into Gaza from Israel and would be announced within two days.

But the senior Israeli official, who plays a key role in such negotiations and speaks only on condition of anonymity, said that all of this was premature because Israel’s elections last Tuesday put off any serious consideration of Hamas’s offer and that consultations would not start again until next week.

“We are only allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, and that has not changed,” the Israeli official said. “Egypt has not yet come to us with the details of what it discussed with Hamas.” Amos Gilad, Israel’s negotiator with Egypt on the truce, is to head back to Cairo at the start of the coming week.

One big concern of Israel’s is guarantees that Hamas is not rearming through smuggling tunnels from Egypt or on the international arms market; Israeli officials will be looking for evidence in the new deal that such re-supplies have been stopped.

Hamas Sees Cease-Fire Within Days; Israel Demurs – NYTimes.com

Just a couple of days ago, three hospitals were attacked. The most serious was on the Al-Quds Palestinian Red Crescent hospital in Gaza city. All the patients had to be moved to the main hospital, Shifa.

Tony Laurence is acting head of the World Health Organization’s Office in the West Bank and Gaza. In a briefing from Jerusalem, he told journalists in Geneva that overall, 16 health facilities and 16 ambulances have been damaged or destroyed, most by indirect fire.

“This recent damage to health facilities and so on comes after an assurance was given us by Israel and an order issued as we were advised by the general of the southern command that ambulances and medical personnel and U.N. as well must be protected. One has to ask what has one to make of such assurances when only two or three days later we have these incidents occurring,” he said.

The Palestine Health Ministry reports nearly 1,200 people have been killed and 5,300 wounded. Most are civilians and one-third are children.

The Israeli Cabinet reportedly is preparing to vote on a proposal for a unilateral cease-fire Saturday evening. But, in the lead-up to this vote, Israel mounted 50 air strikes Friday evening, killing and wounding more people.

Laurence says it is virtually impossible in some areas, particularly around Gaza City, for ambulances and paramedics to reach people who are wounded and dead because of the fighting. He says the health care system has been weakened and depleted because of the 18-month Israeli blockade.

He says hospitals are short of supplies, the equipment is deplorable and the infrastructure is in desperate need of repair.

“Despite all that, the hospital doctors have coped remarkably well,” said Laurence. “They are very experienced with this kind of work. But, it is a system now under enormous strain and, of course, it is now absolutely at full capacity and, the beds are steadily filling up. The main hospital Shifa has coped up to now by very efficient discharge of patients as soon as they are ready to be moved on.”

Laurence says this situation cannot go on for much longer. He says both the hospitals and health personnel are reaching the limit of what they can do to care for the ever-growing number of war wounded.

He says the World Health Organization is assisting the hospitals. He says WHO is trying to address the shortage of drugs and equipment. But, he says there is only so much that can be done under the current terrible circumstances.

VOA News – WHO Appeals For Protection of Hospitals And Ambulances Hit In Gaza

Mr. Olmert, who said all Israeli objectives for the war had been reached, said Israel was responding positively to a call by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt earlier in the day for an immediate cease-fire, in a clearly orchestrated move by two countries that both see the Hamas movement in Gaza as a threat. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders outside Gaza have insisted that the group will fight on, regardless of any Israeli declaration.

The announcement came on a day in which Israel was again criticized by the United Nations over civilian deaths in Gaza — this time after a tank fired at a United Nations school, killing two young brothers taking shelter there.

United Nations aid officials raised questions about whether the attack, and others like it, should be investigated as war crimes. The Israeli Army said that it was investigating the reports at the highest level but that initial inquiries indicated that troops were returning fire from near or within the school.

The Israeli cease-fire, which becomes effective at 2 a.m. Sunday, could mean an effective end to a three-week-old war that has killed at least 1,200 Palestinians, with more buried under rubble, and 13 Israelis. But even then, the shape of any lasting peace was far from clear.

Israel has signaled that its troops will stay in Gaza until a formal truce is signed that meets Israeli goals of stopping rocket fire from Gaza and sharply hindering the smuggling of arms, weapons, cash and fighters into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt. But the government says it will not sign any deal with Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction and whose rule over Gaza Israel does not want to recognize.

Also, Israeli officials said that they reserved the right to attack again in the future if Hamas kept firing rockets into Israel. Hamas, battered but hardly broken, is expected to reassert its political control over Gaza and to resist any attempt to restore a presence for Fatah, the rival faction that runs the Palestinian Authority, within Gaza.

The announcement of the unilateral cease-fire came on the 22nd day of the war, after repeated calls by the United Nations Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for an immediate halt to the fighting and the deaths of civilians.

The military said that it struck hundreds of targets overnight, including rocket-launching sites, weapons caches and 70 smuggling tunnels, and that its troops tightened the encirclement of Gaza City.

Though exiled Hamas figures vowed to keep fighting, it was unclear how the cease-fire will be received by leaders within Gaza. The group’s representatives were scheduled to meet Egyptian officials in Cairo who are trying to pull together a sustainable truce of at least a year that will end rocket fire into Israel, hinder Hamas resupply and reopen all the crossings into encircled Gaza from both Israel and Egypt.

Particularly concerned about limiting smuggling, the United States and Israel signed a “memorandum of understanding” on Friday in Washington that calls for expanded cooperation to prevent Hamas from rearming through Egypt. The agreement, which is vague, promises increased American technical assistance and international monitors, presumably to be based in Egypt, to crack down on the smuggling.

As important, the United States agreed to work with NATO partners to interdict arms smuggling into Gaza by land and sea from Syria and Iran, and in a letter, Britain, France and Germany also offered to help interdict the smuggling of arms to Hamas.

On Saturday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced a summit meeting about Gaza for Sunday, of which Mr. Mubarak would be co-chairman. Mr. Sarkozy announced that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain would attend; Mr. Brown said later he was “considering” attending. Egypt has invited Italy, Spain, Turkey, Mr. Ban and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, whose Fatah party governs the West Bank. The meeting, to take place in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik, is about bringing a halt to the fighting in a sustainable way and reconstruction aid for Gaza.

While Mr. Sarkozy initiated the process with Mr. Mubarak in the waning days of the Bush administration, it has been in the end a deal shaped by Egypt and Israel.

Mr. Mubarak’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said that his country would not be bound by the memorandum of understanding agreed to by the United States and Israel and would not accept foreign troops on its soil. But officials of both Israel and the United States say Egypt has been showing a new seriousness about stopping the smuggling.

The Arab and Muslim world again appeared to be split into two camps. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been openly critical of Hamas, pressing it to agree to a cease-fire. Qatar, meanwhile, which is close to Iran, held a meeting with Syria, Iran, Mauritania and Hamas’s exiled political leader, Khaled Meshal, as the Palestinian representative. Mr. Abbas, who is supported by the United States and Egypt, had refused to go to Qatar.

In Beit Lahiya, some 1,600 displaced Gazans have taken shelter at a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa, which cares for Palestinian refugees from the 1948-49 war and their descendants.

John Ging, the Gaza director of the agency, said that two brothers, ages 5 and 7, were killed about 7 a.m. by Israeli fire at the school. Their mother, who was among 14 others wounded, had her legs blown off.

“These two little boys are as innocent, indisputably, as they are dead,” Mr. Ging said. “The question now being asked is: is this and the killing of all other innocent civilians in Gaza a war crime?”

Christopher Gunness, the refugee agency’s spokesman, said: “Where you have a direct hit on an Unrwa school where about 1,600 people had taken refuge, where the Israeli Army knows the coordinates and knows who’s there, where this comes as the latest in a catalogue of direct and indirect attacks on Unrwa facilities, there have to be investigations to establish whether war crimes have been committed,” as well, he added “as violations of international humanitarian law.”

The strike was the fourth time Israel has hit an Unrwa school during the war on Hamas. On Jan. 6, Mr. Ging said, 43 people died when an Israeli shell hit the compound of a school in Jabaliya. Israel has disputed the death toll and said it was returning mortar fire from the school compound.

Four Israeli soldiers, two of them officers, were seriously hurt by mortar fire in fighting on Saturday morning, the army said, suggesting that they were victims of friendly fire. And it said that Hamas had fired 12 rockets at Israel on Saturday, a sharp reduction from daily totals since the start of the war.

While the details are debated and the dead are counted, a critical long-term issue is whether the Gaza operation restores Israel’s deterrent. Israel wants Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Arab world to view it as a nation too strong and powerful to seriously threaten or attack. That motivation is one reason, Israeli officials say privately, for going into Gaza so hard, using such firepower, and fighting Hamas as an enemy army.

The answer won’t be known for many months, but the key to the Muslim world’s reaction is actually that of the Israeli public, said Yossi Klein Halevi, of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies in Jerusalem. “The Arabs take their cue from Israeli responses,” he said. “Deterrence is about how Israelis feel, whether they feel they’ve won or lost.”

Mr. Halevi cited both the 1973 war — which Egyptians celebrate and Israelis mourn, though it ended with a spectacular Israel counterattack — and the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, apologized for the 2006 war on television, “but he quickly reversed himself to declare a wonderful victory when he saw the Israeli public declaring defeat,” Mr. Halevi said.

Even more important, perhaps, this Gazan war is a test case for any potential Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank. If Israelis feel that the West Bank will turn into another kind of chaotic, Hamas-run Gaza, they will be unwilling to withdraw — especially if they believe that once they withdrew, and if they were attacked from the West Bank, they would not be allowed to respond with force.

“Gaza is an important test of whether we can defend ourselves within the 1967 boundaries,” Mr. Halevi said, noting that Hamas had been attacking Israel proper, not settlements. “Will we be able to defend ourselves if we need to from the West Bank? Will the international community let us?”

The Israeli public has stayed united behind the war as a necessary battle, despite serious misgivings about the death toll of Palestinian civilians and international condemnation. Even Meretz, a party on the left of Israeli politics, supported the air war.

Hamas has modeled itself on Hezbollah, calling on Iranian support. Mr. Nasrallah once spoke of Israeli power as a spider web — impressive from afar, but easily brushed aside. This war against Hamas, Mr. Halevi said, “is the revenge of the spider.”

Israel Declares Cease Fire; Hamas Says It Will Fight On – NYTimes.com

A senior government official said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security cabinet is expected to vote in favour of a proposal at a meeting Saturday night under which Israel would silence its guns even without a reciprocal agreement from the Palestinian group which has controlled Gaza since mid 2007.

Under the terms of the proposal, Israeli troops would remain inside the territory for an unspecified period, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity

The Jewish state expected Hamas to halt its attacks as well, the official said, but warned that “if it decides to open fire, we will not hesitate to respond and resume our offensive.”

“The security cabinet is expected to vote in favour of a unilateral ceasefire at tomorrow’s meeting following the signing of the memorandum in Washington and significant progress made in Cairo,” the official said.

The breakthrough came after Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement in Washington with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice under which the United States would assist in preventing smuggling into Gaza, and a top envoy returned from talks with officials in Cairo.

“Olmert was satisfied with the results of the talks in Cairo, which answered Israel’s basic requirements for a thorough answer to Israel’s demands to halt rocket fire and an agreement on coordination between Israel and Egypt on the opening of the crossings” in Gaza, added the official.

However, although Olmert is in favour of the ceasefire, its approval is not certain as the security cabinet has shown previous divisions over the conduct of the war which was designed to put an end to rockets fired from Gaza.

Even as the stage was being set for a possible end to the Israeli offensive, in which at least 1,188 Palestinians have been killed, including 410 children, the military was staging a fresh wave of deadly strikes on the territory.

At least 55 Palestinians were killed on Friday, including at least 10 people who died when a tank shell slammed into their house in Gaza City during a funeral wake, according to Palestinian medics.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the territory, three daughters and a niece of a Palestinian doctor working in Israel were killed in an Israeli air strike.

“They were girls, only girls. I want to know why they have they killed them. Who gave the order to fire?” the children’s sobbing father Ezzedine Abu Eish said on Israeli television.

Palestinian militants meanwhile fired over 20 rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel on Friday, wounding five people, the Israeli military said. Over 700 such projectiles have been fired since the start of the war.

Earlier Khaled Meshaal, the exiled head of Hamas’s politburo, told Arab leaders the Islamist movement would not accept any ceasefire that did not provide for a full Israeli pullout and the opening of Gaza’s borders, including into Egypt.

“I assure you: despite all the destruction in Gaza, we will not accept Israel’s conditions for a ceasefire,” he told a meeting of Arab and other leaders in Doha.

His deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk later told Al-Jazeera television that Hamas would not make any decisions regarding a unilateral Israel ceasefire until its delegation held a fresh round of talks with Cairo on Saturday.

A senior Egyptian official quoted by the official MENA news agency said said Cairo had already conveyed the Israeli response to Hamas’s proposal for a ceasefire under certain specified conditions.

Clamping down on the porous Gaza-Egypt border, where hundreds of underground tunnels form Hamas’s main rear supply route, has been a key Israeli demand for ending the offensive that has has also wounded around 5,285 people.

After signing the deal in Washington, Livni told Israeli television that smuggling weapons into Gaza was tantamount to firing at Israel.

“They continue doing this, Israel has the right to respond,” she said.

Rice said she hoped the agreement, under which the United States and Israel will step up efforts to stamp out arms smuggling to Gaza, would advance efforts to secure a ceasefire.

She said she hoped for a “ceasefire very, very soon” but could not promise one would be sealed in time for January 20, when President George W. Bush hands the White House over to his successor, Barack Obama.

“We’re working … on as quick a timeline as we possibly can in support of the Egyptian mediation,” she said.

The war in Gaza has drawn worldwide protests and raised fears of a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade for 18 months.

AFP: Israel poised to call unilateral halt to Gaza offensive

If Israel agrees to stop shooting, Israel radio said a truce summit would be held in Cairo Sunday with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Israeli leaders expected to attend.

Hamas’ political chief rejected Israel’s conditions, but negotiators for the Islamic militant group were in behind-the-scenes contact with mediators in Cairo and signaled it was time for a truce.

“If they are ready, we are ready,” Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas figure, told Sky News.

Israel launched its military offensive Dec. 27 to try to halt Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel, and top envoys were in Cairo and Washington on Friday to discuss cease-fire terms.

Palestinian medics say the fighting has killed at least 1,140 Palestinians and Israel’s bombing campaign caused massive destruction in the Gaza Strip. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, four by rocket fire, according to Israel.

The Israeli vote was scheduled hours after the U.S. paved the way by agreeing to provide assurances that Hamas will not be able to rearm if Israel approves a cease-fire. It comes ahead of President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday, and Israeli elections next month.

A senior Israeli official said a vote approving the truce would amount to a “unilateral” cease-fire, though Israeli forces would only leave Gaza after an official declaration that the fighting was over. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

A truce would begin a phased process in which Israel halts its military offensive and then gauges the reaction from Hamas militants, the official said. If the militants continue to fire rockets, the assault would resume.

Under the deal, Egypt would shut down weapons smuggling routes with international help, and discussions on opening Gaza’s blockaded border crossings would take place at a later date.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban, who had weekend visits planned to Lebanon and Syria, was considering whether to attend a summit in Cairo Sunday, adding: “There’s been no decision yet.”

Israeli leaders were also considering whether to attend the summit, the senior Israeli official said.

The diplomatic developments coincided with an easing of violence in Gaza, where Israeli assaults killed 14 Palestinians on Friday, a lower death toll than in recent days. Palestinian medics took advantage of the relative calm, digging out 25 bodies buried under rubble in areas where Israeli forces and militants had clashed.

Palestinians heard dozens of Israeli tanks and other military vehicles roll away from the eastern and southern edges of Gaza City. An Israeli security official said the tanks would redeploy and were not withdrawing. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli envoy Amos Gilad returned from Cairo and reported “substantial progress” in truce talks with Egyptian mediators, said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“I hope we are entering the endgame and that our goal of sustained and durable quiet in the south is about to be attained,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement intended to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into Gaza if a cease-fire is implemented.

Livni described the deal as “vital … for a cessation of hostility” and said it was meant “to complement Egyptian actions and to end of the flow of weapons to Gaza.”

Earlier, Rice said she hoped European countries would work out similar bilateral agreements with Israel.

“There are a number of conditions that need to be obtained if a cease-fire is to be durable,” Rice said. “Among them is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran.”

The agreement outlines a framework under which the United States commits detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations to be used in monitoring Gaza’s land and sea borders.

Rice and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton had been consulted on the details of the document, which was concluded after frenetic negotiations to address Israeli concerns that Hamas would use a cease-fire to stock up on weapons.

A diplomat on the U.N. Security Council in New York said he was reasonably optimistic that “we are in the last leg of the negotiations,” though some issues remain unresolved.

There were long discussions on border security because the Egyptians don’t want any kind of international presence on their side of the border, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are being held behind closed doors.

“Everything has to be on the other side of the border, which means there’s a problem of who will be there, not only on behalf of the international community, but also which Palestinians. So it’s linked to a potential agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority — so it’s linked to other discussions,” the diplomat said.

In addition, he said, discussions were under way with the U.S. on technology to help locate and destroy the tunnels Hamas has used to smuggle in weapons.

In Gaza, residents said they would welcome an end to the fighting, but expressed skepticism a cease-fire can hold.

“Everybody wants the world to return to what it was. But I think it’s empty words,” said Ghadir Mohammed, who was forced to flee her Gaza City home because of the fighting. “Let’s assume if Hamas fires a rocket, will they be quiet about it? Israel isn’t the kind to be quiet.”

Hiba Dahshan from the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place, said: “We are exhausted. We need a solution. Hopefully they’ll halt fire.”

A resident of the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, which has been targeted by Hamas rockets, said the army needed to free Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit — abducted by Hamas in 2006 — and be sure there would be quiet in southern Israel before stopping the fight.

“For eight years, they have been shooting at us,” said Yigal Hakmon, manager of a convenience store. “We can’t stop in the middle. We have to finish. We have to kill all the Hamas people.”

Hamas, which has controlled the tiny Mediterranean strip since 2007, has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings.

Mohamed Nazzal, a Hamas official based in Damascus, said the Egyptians invited Hamas on Friday for more discussions.

“It is expected that we go to see what is the opinion of the Israelis on the Hamas propositions,” Nazzal said.

The Syrian-based Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal took a hard line at a summit of Arab countries in the Qatari capital of Doha, asking them to cut off any ties with Israel.

“We will not accept Israel’s conditions for a cease-fire,” Mashaal told the summit. He said Hamas demands that “the aggression stop,” Israeli troops withdraw and crossings into Gaza open immediately.

Qatar and Mauritania heeded Mashaal’s call, suspending political and economic contacts with Israel to protest the fighting. Qatar does not have diplomatic relations with Israel but maintains lower-level ties; Mauritania has full relations, but Israel’s embassy in Mauritania was to remain and its ambassador was not being expelled.

Israel says it’s near ‘endgame’ for Gaza offensive – Yahoo! News

“How is such a country, which totally ignores and does not implement resolutions of the U.N. Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the U.N.?” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Erdogan spoke before U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Ankara. Erdogan’s comments reflected growing anger in Turkey, Israel’s best friend in the Muslim world, over Israel’s Gaza operation.

Ban is on a weeklong trip to the region to promote a truce after both Israel and Hamas leaders in Gaza ignored a U.N. resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

“The U.N. building in Gaza was hit while the U.N. secretary-general was in Israel,” Erdogan said. “This is an open challenge to the world.”

Erdogan told Ban at a banquet that Turkey was disappointed the United Nations did not assume a more active role in Gaza, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported on Friday.

“All border crossings with Gaza must be opened to alleviate the suffering of civilians and Israeli soldiers must simultaneously and urgently leave Gaza,” Anatolia quoted Erdogan as saying. “Turkey is ready for any mission in each and every step the U.N. will take.”

Ban said Turkey’s proposals were important, Anatolia said.

Israel infuriated the U.N. when it shelled the world body’s headquarters Thursday in Gaza City, where hundreds of Gazans were seeking shelter. The destruction added to what aid groups say is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In an anti-Israel demonstration in Istanbul after Friday prayers, about 1,500 pro-Islamic protesters chanted “We’re all soldiers of Hamas!” And police in Ankara used pepper spray to disperse hundreds of protesters. Several shops were damaged during the clashes in downtown Kizilay district.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor rebuffed Erdogan’s criticism.

“Maybe if Turkey had voted more with Israel at the U.N. and expressed its anger when Hamas was firing rockets indiscriminately on Israeli civilians, it could have contributed more to bringing peace to southern Israel and Gaza” than by making such statements, Palmor said.

Turkish PM: Israel should be barred from UN

The development came as the U.N. secretary-general pressed Israel and Gulf leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia to discuss the conflict.

The diplomatic push gained momentum despite competing agendas among Arab and Islamic governments, which are openly disagreeing about how to resolve — or even discuss — the conflict between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops pushed deeper into densely populated Gaza City on the 20th day of the offensive to rout out Hamas militants. Israeli tanks shelled the crowded downtown, sending terrified residents fleeing for cover.

Witnesses and U.N. officials said Israeli shells struck the United Nations headquarters building that serves as a shelter for hundreds of people, setting it ablaze.

The Israeli push ratcheted up pressure on Hamas to accept a proposed cease-fire. It also came as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was in Israel trying to promote a cease-fire.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Israel wants a total end to Hamas’ rocket launches into Israel and an arms embargo on Gaza’s militant rulers.

“There is momentum in these discussions,” Regev told AP Television News. “We are hopeful that a deal will be based on a total cessation of Hamas fire into Israel and an arms embargo to prevent Hamas from rearming is close and attainable.”

The Israeli envoy, Amos Gilad, who spent four hours in Egypt before returning home, was discussing the “parameters of the end game” with the Egyptian mediators, Regev said. Gilad did not meet Hamas envoys who are also in town.

Gaza-based Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said the deeper incursion reflected pressure on his group.

“I think Israel is seeking in the last moments to escalate the military operation to pressure the parties,” Hamad told The Associated Press. “I don’t think this will change the issues on the table.”

The Egyptian proposal calls for a 10-day cease-fire, but Israeli troops would remain in place in Gaza until a security arrangement is negotiated for border crossings to ensure weapons cannot be brought in. Once that is done, Israeli troops would withdraw and the borders would be opened.

That would mean Hamas dropping its demand that an Israeli withdrawal and an opening of borders be simultaneous with a cease-fire. It was still unclear whether the militant group had fully signed on to that idea.

Hamad said his group has offered amendments to Egypt’s original peace proposal, and he expected the Egyptians will convey them to the Israelis. “Consultations are continuing,” he said.

After Gilad’s departure, Salah Bardawil, a Hamas negotiator in Cairo, said his group now demands Israeli troops withdraw within five days of the start of a cease-fire and seeks Turkish or European monitors to ensure that border crossings remain open.

Hamas’ deputy chief, Moussa Abou Marzouk, who is based in Damascus, took a hard line, telling The Associated Press that the group would not abandon its demand that Israel withdraw its troops from Gaza. “This is our main demand, along with the reopening of the border crossings,” he said.

In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah to speak out over “the massacre of your children in Gaza,” the official Iranian news agency reported.

Saudi Arabia is overwhelmingly Sunni, as are the Palestinians, while Iran is a top backer of Hamas.

Ahmadinejad said a firm Saudi stand would dash hopes of those who want to divide Islamic countries.

At a news conference, Ahmadinejad said the fighting in Gaza has been “a great lesson for all,” saying it shows “the absolute defeat and desperation of this (Israeli) regime.”

He says that “even for the supporters of the occupying regime and its leaders, it has become clear that the continuation of the Zionist regime’s life in the region is not feasible.”

In an interview Wednesday, Ahmadinejad urged Arab states to pressure Israel’s Western backers to stop the fighting and to cut all ties with Israel, and also dismissed allegations Iran is urging Hamas to reject Egyptian truce efforts.

Israel says it launched the offensive Dec. 27 to stop rocket fire against southern Israeli towns by Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. Gaza medical officials say 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since the offensive started.

Meanwhile, an emergency summit of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, called by Saudi Arabia to discuss Gaza, is to take place in Riyadh later Thursday.

But a separate summit by Arab League heads of state called by Qatar for Friday in Doha was in doubt as Qatar couldn’t get a two-thirds majority of the organization to attend.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are against the Doha summit, believing it could scuttle Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

In Europe, Mideast envoy Tony Blair joined on Thursday three top European diplomats — foreign ministers Bernard Kouchner of France, Jonas Gahr Stoere of Norway and the EU’s Benita Ferrero-Waldner — at a meeting in Paris to discuss the conflict.

The Associated Press: Iran president: ‘Not feasible’ for Israel to live

Said Siyam, the Hamas interior minister, was killed in an air raid on his brother’s home near Gaza City.

Earlier, Israeli troops and tanks moved closer into the heart of Gaza City, prompting fierce gun battles with fighters from Hamas.

The UN’s relief agency, Unrwa, said part of its HQ in Gaza caught fire after being hit by Israeli shells.

Senior figure

As interior minister, Mr Siyam controlled thousands of Hamas security troops in Gaza and was said to be widely feared.

His son and brother were also killed in the strike, along with two other Hamas officials – the interior ministry’s security director Saleh Abu Sharkh and the local leader of the Hamas militia, Mahmoud Abu Watfah.

Mr Siyam is one of the most senior Hamas leaders killed in the 20-day Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip.

He became a member of the “collective leadership” of the militant group in 2004 after Sheikh Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Rantissi were assassinated by Israel.

His death came at the end of a day of fierce clashes which also saw the UN compound in Gaza City shelled by Israeli troops.

Unrwa spokesman Christopher Gunness said three of the agency’s employees were hurt in the attack.

About 700 people were sheltering in the compound at the time, he said, and the fire burnt through stocks of food and medicine, approaching five full fuel tanks.

Mr Olmert met UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and apologised for the attack, but said Palestinian fighters had been firing from the UN site.

“It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologise for it,” he said.

“I don’t think it should have happened and I’m very sorry.”

The coastal enclave came under heavy fire from the east in the early morning as soldiers and tanks pushed into Gaza City.

Witnesses said they saw soldiers on foot marching behind bulldozers and tanks.

The advancing troops came under fire from fighters from Hamas and other Palestinian factions positioned on rooftops and balconies, said the BBC’s Rushdi Abualouf.

The building where he lives in the Gaza City suburb of Tel al-Hawa was surrounded by Israeli tanks at one point, he said, and several shells hit the lower floors.

Columns of thick smoke rose into the sky over Gaza.

A total of 1,083 people in Gaza have now been killed since the Israeli operation began, Gaza’s Ministry of Health said on Thursday – 70 higher than the previous day’s figure. Nearly a third of the dead are children, Gaza medics said.

Thirteen Israelis – including three civilians – have died.

Reports said at least 15 rockets had been fired from Gaza into Israel since the early morning, injuring eight people in Beersheba.

Speaking to the media after meeting Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv, Mr Ban repeated previous calls for an immediate ceasefire, and said the suffering in Gaza was a “dire humanitarian crisis” that had reached an “unbearable point”.

In other developments:

* The UK Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown says the British government “utterly” condemns the attack on the UN headquarters in Gaza. Fierce criticism also came from the French foreign ministry
* Two hospitals in Gaza City are hit by shellfire: the al-Quds hospital in Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, scene of heavy fighting, and a Red Crescent hospital, the Red Cross says
* The Shurouq tower block in Gaza City, which houses the offices of the Reuters news agency and several other media organisations, is hit by an explosion, injuring a journalist for the Abu Dhabi television channel
* Leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council are to meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss the crisis. The Saudi monarch, King Abdullah, said the meeting was convened because of what he called Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people

‘Detailed vision’

Meanwhile, Hamas and Israeli negotiators were said to be making progress towards a ceasefire agreement as they held separate meetings with Egyptian mediators in Cairo.

Egypt has been leading efforts to broker a ceasefire that could include a peacekeeping force being deployed along its border with Gaza to prevent the smuggling of weapons.

On Wednesday, Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil said his movement had presented Egyptian negotiators with a “detailed vision” of how to bring about a ceasefire.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, has said any ceasefire agreement would have to include a halt to Israeli attacks, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the opening of border crossings to end the blockade of Gaza.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said there was “momentum” to the talks.

“Ultimately we want to see a long-term sustainable quiet in the south, a quiet that’s going to be based on the total absence of all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, and an internationally supported mechanism that will prevent Hamas from rearming,” Mr Regev said.

Israel launched its offensive on the Gaza Strip on 27 December and has refused to allow international journalists to enter Gaza without supervision, making it to independently confirm casualty figures.

The offensive has provoked widespread international condemnation at the cost in civilian casualties and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the coastal enclave.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Key Hamas leader killed in Gaza