“Should a decision of any kind be required, it will be made only via a meeting of the Security Cabinet and after taking into account all of the new political circumstances that have been created in the wake of the recent Israeli elections,” Yanki Galanti, the media adviser for Ehud Olmert, said Saturday night in a statement.

The consultations are to take place among Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Israel held elections Tuesday which resulted in a near-tie between Livni’s centrist Kadima party and the right-wing Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. It is not yet clear who will emerge as prime minister.

Israel agreed January 21 to temporarily halt its three-week military operation in Gaza, which it began in response to repeated rocket attacks into southern Israel. Since then, Egypt has been trying to broker an agreement between the two sides.

On Friday, a spokesman for Hamas told CNN that Israeli and Hamas negotiators have “almost reached agreement” on a long-term truce.

Tahir Annono, who is in Cairo for the truce meetings, said there would be meetings Friday and Saturday, and on Sunday an announcement would be made.

Hamas’ deputy leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said that the truce would last for 18 months and all commercial border crossings between Gaza and Israel would be opened.

The security of Israelis who have been targets of the rocket attacks from Gaza and the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit are priorities as Israel considers the next steps in its conflict with Hamas, Olmert said Saturday through his media adviser.

Olmert has been under pressure to secure Shalit’s release as part of a broader cease-fire deal. However, the cease-fire in January did not include Shalit’s release as a condition.

Shalit was 19 when he was captured on June 25, 2006, by Palestinian militants in Gaza. They tunneled into Israel and attacked an Israeli army outpost near the Gaza-Israel-Egypt border, killing two other soldiers in the assault. Israel immediately launched a military incursion into Gaza to rescue him, but failed.

“We should like to emphasize that the security of residents of the south and the release of Gilad Shalit are currently at the top (of) Israel’s priorities,” the statement said.

Israel denies reports of Hamas negotiations

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

The league’s envoy to the United Nations, Yahya Mahmassani called the interception an act of piracy and asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to intervene.

Crew members and journalists aboard the Lebanese ship say Israel’s military fired in the ship’s direction before Israeli forces boarded the vessel. The Israeli military denied it fired on the ship.

Israeli officials said the Lebanese ship was escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod, and that any aid would be transferred to Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials say Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to the transfer of $43 million into Gaza to allow the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to pay salaries.

Palestinians in Gaza have lacked cash due to an Israeli blockade of the territory. Israel says its blockade is aimed at stopping weapons smuggling to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza.

In other news, a senior Hamas official, Ayman Taha deposited $11 million in an Egyptian bank, after Egyptian authorities prevented him from carrying the cash into Gaza.

The official was part of a delegation in Cairo this week for talks on a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. The group was later allowed to cross into Gaza, after leaving Cairo without reaching a deal on a cease-fire.

Hamas officials say they hope to return to the Egyptian capital within the next week for further talks. They say they want more information from Israel before signing Egypt’s proposal for an 18-month cease-fire.

Hamas has repeatedly called on Israel to open all border crossings into Gaza. On Thursday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also urged the border be opened to allow in humanitarian aid. He made the comments after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington.

In violence on Thursday, Israeli officials say troops shot and killed a Palestinian who threw a grenade near the Gaza-Israel border.

Israel conducted a three-week offensive against Hamas in Gaza to put an end to rocket attacks. More than 1,300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed before the offensive ended last month.

VOA News – Arab League Condemns Israeli Seizure of Aid Ship

The government argues that overwhelming victory in the field will advance what was Operation Cast Lead’s primary goal: bringing a long period of quiet to civilians in southern Israel, freeing them from the tyranny of cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza.

But critics on the right say the government did not go far enough.

They maintain that it had a golden opportunity to topple the Hamas regime, which the government let slip by stopping the fighting too soon. Right wingers also are skeptical about whether Egypt and other members of the international community will be able to keep their commitments to prevent the rearmament of Hamas in Gaza.

Meanwhile, critics on the left say the fighting went on too long, that its relatively modest goals could have been achieved much earlier and that the large number of Palestinian civilian casualties, deplorable in and of itself, will hurt Israel’s international standing and breed a new generation of Palestinian fanatics unwilling to make peace on any terms.

Jerusalem hoped to achieve its goal of quiet for southern Israel by destroying as much of Hamas’ military infrastructure as possible, preventing it from being replaced and creating a new deterrent equation to make Hamas think twice before provoking Israel again.

Judged by these standards, the war seems to have been an outstanding success.

The IDF achieved both strategic and tactical surprise. Hamas did not expect anything like the ferocity of the Israeli onslaught; it was caught on the first day unprepared for war, and it was surprised again later when the IDF was able to jam remote control devices meant to detonate scores of booby-trapped buildings on advancing IDF soldiers.

During the fighting, more than 500 militiamen were killed and the vast majority of Hamas weapons’ stores and rocket manufacturing workshops were destroyed – including dozens of medium-range Grad rockets supplied by Iran.

Israeli military intelligence says the IDF’s performance in the war, its firepower, relatively low human losses, accurate intelligence, and pinpoint coordination between air, ground and naval forces, has gone a long way toward restoring Israeli deterrence — not only with regard to Hamas, but in the Middle East as a whole.

The message this sends is two-fold: To the radical Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas axis, it warns not to take Israel lightly, and to the moderate, pro-Western Egypt-Jordan-Saudi Arabia camp, the message is to be bolder in confronting extremist rejectionists.

The war also leaves Hamas facing a huge dilemma: whether to spend the meager resources it has on acquiring new weapons, how to smuggle them into Gaza if it decides to buy them, and whether to risk another massive Israeli retaliation if it uses them.

“I don’t think they will do it again soon, and if they do they will be hit hard again,” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said.

The Israeli government is also confident that a string of new agreements with Egypt, the Europeans and the United States on blocking arms traffic into Gaza will prove effective.

Officials say there is a new seriousness to do so on the part of Egypt, which has both regional and domestic reasons for wanting to keep Hamas weak. The Egyptians have no desire to see the long arm of their bitter regional foe Iran being strengthened on their doorstep, nor do they want to see further showdowns between Israel and Hamas. Such confrontations inflame Egyptian public opinion and strengthen domestic Islamic opposition led by the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an ideological offshoot and ally.

Until now, the Egyptians have failed to stop local Bedouin and others from conducting lucrative arms trades through the Sinai desert, and in tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

As they approached Gaza, the Bedouin, who were paid enormous sums by Hamas, often would bribe Egyptian border guards to let them through. The question is whether the government in Cairo will find ways to arrest this deeply embedded practice.

The Americans and the Germans have offered Egypt state-of-the art equipment to detect smuggling tunnels and pick up would-be smugglers. The United States and some of the European countries — notably Britain, France, Germany and Italy — want to cut off the arms even before they reach Egypt.

They are offering to patrol the high seas to intercept any potential arms shipments from Iran to Egypt or directly to Gaza. In Washington last week, Livni signed a new memorandum of understanding with the United States on arms smuggling. A secret appendix talks about close intelligence cooperation on Iranian maritime movements. The memorandum also specifically gives Israel the go-ahead to attack smuggling tunnels along the border if all other efforts to stop the flow of arms from Egypt into Gaza fail.

Six key European leaders — from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic – came to Jerusalem on Sunday in a remarkable show of support for Israel. Their backing for the Jewish state was at least partly a public statement of their recognition of the fact that they and Israel are on the same side when it comes to fighting Iranian-inspired Islamic terror.

This, despite the fact that, in most cases, the media and the public in their home countries have been strongly critical of the widespread destruction and heavy civilian casualty rate in Gaza caused by Israel in the war.

Egypt, which hosted the six leaders earlier in the day, has emerged as the main regional victor in the crisis. It brokered the new Hamas-Israel cease-fire, is taking on a major role against arms smuggling and is pressing Hamas and the more moderate Fatah organization, which runs the Palestinian Authority, to establish a national unity government to rebuild Gaza and talk peace with Israel.

Whether Gaza is rebuilt with Western, Arab or Iranian money, by Fatah or by Hamas, could be crucial in shaping the political orientation of its beleaguered people.

Not surprisingly, the outcome of the war is also having a major impact on the Israeli election, which is just three weeks away.

During the war, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the architect of the war and leader of Israel’s Labor Party, saw his poll numbers rise at the expense of right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud. That delivered gains to Livni, who has been running a close second behind Netanyahu.

But with the fighting now over and criticism of the war gaining traction, the pendulum is swinging back toward Netanyahu and, even more so, to Avigdor Lieberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.

Whichever side is able to dominate the narrative of the war’s outcome likely will determine who becomes Israel’s next prime minister.

Did Israel win the war against Hamas? | JTA – Jewish & Israel News

The Palestinian group fired at least 15 rockets and mortars into southern Israel to show that it had not been crushed. It then gave Israel seven days to withdraw its forces and open Gaza’s border crossings to allow in desperately needed humanitarian aid.

Some Israeli troops did leave Gaza, giving victory signs to the television cameras, but they were a fraction of the total deployment.

As the fighting subsided, the scale of the destruction became apparent. Rescue teams pulled nearly 100 bodies from the rubble of previously inaccessible areas, taking the Palestinian death toll to more than 1,200 — half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, all but three of them soldiers.

The Palestinian Authority said that 4,000 homes, 48 government offices, 30 police stations and 20 mosques had been destroyed, along with many utilities, roads and schools, and that 14 per cent of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged.

The UN Relief and Works Agency said that 53 of its schools, clinics, warehouses and other installations in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed, many by direct hits.

Gordon Brown attended a hastily convened summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday, chaired by President Mubarak of Egypt and President Sarkozy of France. Also attending were Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and senior politicians from Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Jordan.

The Prime Minister told reporters on his flight to Egypt that Israel should allow humanitarian workers full access to Gaza and said that Britain had pledged an additional £20 million in aid. In an apparent criticism of the scale of the Israeli response to the Hamas rocket attacks, Mr Brown said that too many innocent people had died in the 22-day assault on Gaza.

Egypt agreed to organise an international donors’ conference to rebuild Gaza. Following America’s lead, the European countries promised technical, military and diplomatic measures to address Israel’s key demand – that the smuggling of weapons to Hamas through tunnels beneath Gaza’s nine-mile border with Egypt be stopped.

Mr Brown said that British naval vessels would help to intercept weapons from countries such as Iran.

Last night the European representatives flew on to Israel to meet Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister.

“The Israelis must clearly indicate that as long as there is an end to the rocket firing the army must leave Gaza,” Mr Sarkozy said.

Around the Hamas stronghold of Zeitun, rows of homes have been levelled by Israeli tanks and bulldozers. Citrus orchards have been flattened and workshops wrecked. Cars and trucks lie upside down and roads are blocked by debris and electric cables. “It’s like being hit by a tsunami,” said Mustafa Kozad, 57, a mechanic.

Ahmad Said, 73, who said that the Israeli offensive had strengthened support for Hamas, said: “I can’t believe what’s happened. These people are like the Nazis. They’re doing to us what was done to them by the Germans.”

Mohammed Abu Hamaid, 30, agreed. “I’m full of hatred for these savages,” he said of the Israelis. “I wish I had a camera to take pictures of this destruction. Then I could show them to my children so they would never forget it and seek to avenge it.”

The Israeli security Cabinet approved the ceasefire by seven votes to two on Saturday night. Mr Olmert said that Israeli troops would stay in Gaza until Hamas’s response became clear.

Israel was keen to call a halt to the fighting before the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States tomorrow.

Mr Olmert argued that Operation Cast Lead had seriously weakened Hamas and sent a powerful warning to Iran, Hezbollah and other regional enemies not to meddle with Israel.

Some Israelis, however, complained that Egypt had given no guarantee that it would stop the smuggling, and that Hamas remained in control of Gaza with hundreds of rockets, thousands of fighters and many of its smuggling tunnels still intact.

Israel has also failed to secure the release of Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier who was captured by Gazan militants in 2006.

Watershed weekend

January 17

— The Israeli security Cabinet votes in favour of a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, to begin at 2am the following day

— A United Nations official calls for a war crimes investigation after the deaths of two children, aged 5 and 7, in the Gazan town of Beit Lahiya. They died when an Israeli shell struck a three-storey building

January 18

— Hamas fires at least 15 rockets into Israel

— The Israelis respond with two airstrikes

— Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’s deputy leader, declares a one-week ceasefire, but Israeli authorities report sporadic rocket attacks

— Israeli troops begin withdrawing from Gaza

— Egypt hosts summit of European and Arab leaders to co-ordinate policy on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Hamas announces week-long ceasefire in Gaza – Times Online

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

“That is … a very alarming, very disturbing and troubling situation,” Ban told reporters in the Jordanian capital on the first day of a week-long tour of the Middle East.

Ban said that U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, were investigating the rocket attacks launched from inside Lebanon. The incident took place on the 19th day of Israel’s offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.

“I again strongly urge all the parties concerned in this region … to refrain from taking such violent actions which will destabilize the situation,” Ban said.

“We are now going through a very difficult process to bring a ceasefire, to bring stability back to Gaza. Such actions are just unacceptable,” Ban said.

He added that he would discuss the latest Lebanese rocket salvoes — the second such attack from Lebanon in a week — with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday and with Lebanese officials in Beirut later in the week.

Security sources in Lebanon said five rockets were fired, though two fell in Lebanon. Witnesses in southern Lebanon said Israel responded with artillery fire but there were no reports of casualties or further Israeli military action.

Israel fought a month-long war in 2006 against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Hezbollah has denied responsibility for last week’s rocket attacks against Israel.

PLEA

Earlier Ban discussed an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza with Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo and later with Jordan’s King Abdullah in Amman. Ban said he would continue to renew his calls for a ceasefire in Gaza in meetings with Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Thursday.

Ban did not comment on statements from a Hamas official working with Egyptian mediators in Cairo indicating that Hamas might be willing to accept some kind of a ceasefire.

The U.N. chief was asked if he was disappointed that both Israel and Hamas had ignored a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last week that called for an immediate end to the Israeli offensive and rocket attacks against southern Israel.

“It is more than disappointment,” Ban said, adding that he wanted an “an immediate and durable ceasefire.”

This, he said, was a message he would bring to Israel on Thursday when he meets with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“Hamas rocket attacks must stop and at the same time I have been condemning the excessive military operation by the Israelis,” he told an earlier news conference in Cairo with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said 1,010 Palestinians had been killed and 4,700 wounded by Israel so far. The Israelis say on their side 10 soldiers, and three civilians hit by cross-border Hamas rockets, have been killed.

Ban also called on “all those who have influence with any parties to this conflict” to use that influence to help put an end to the fighting — indicating an acknowledgement that his own ability to influence events was extremely limited.

The U.N. chief, whose tour will also take him to Israel and Syria, said he was unlikely to visit the Gaza Strip, partly because of the dangerous situation there.

U.N. alarmed by Lebanon rocket attacks on Israel | Reuters

Palestinian medics Wednesday said more than 1,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the 19-day conflict.

The head of the U.N.’s children’s agency, UNICEF, says 300 children are among the dead.

Thirteen Israelis have died in the conflict, which Israel launched to stop Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel.

Both sides kept up attacks today, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is in Jordan, pushing for an immediate cease-fire.

And a new audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden is calling on Muslims to launch a jihad, or holy war, to stop Israel’s offensive.

VOA News – Hamas Awaits Israeli Cease-Fire Response

There was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack, which triggered warning sirens in parts of northern Israel, and police said no one was hurt.

On Thursday, a similar salvo hit northern Israel but Lebanese and Israeli officials were quick to play down that incident, blaming not the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, an ally of Gaza’s Hamas, but smaller, Palestinian groups in Lebanon. Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

“Three rockets fired into Israel landed outside the city of Kiryat Shmona,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said about Wednesday’s incident in the Galilee.

Security sources in Lebanon said five rockets were fired and two fell in Lebanon. Witnesses in south Lebanon said Israel responded with artillery fire. There were no immediate reports of casualties or further Israeli military action.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo at the start of a major diplomatic push to end the war in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has been battling Hamas Islamists for 19 days in a bid to end their rocket fire on its towns.

Israeli troops edged closer to the heart of the city of Gaza on Wednesday morning and international organisations expressed growing concern about the plight of children trapped there.

The Palestinian death toll rose to 971, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, counting some 400 women and children among those killed. Israel says 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rockets fired across the border have been killed.

Sporadic explosions, machine gun fire and the wail of ambulances pierced the night after Israel’s senior general said more work lay ahead for his troops in their stated mission of stopping the Hamas rocket attacks.

Israeli aircraft attacked about 60 targets, including Hamas police headquarters in the city of Gaza, eight squads of gunmen, five rocket-launching sites and some 35 weapons smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, the military said.

Three rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel, causing no casualties, emergency services said.

RED CROSS APPEAL

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited the densely populated Palestinian enclave on Tuesday and said what he saw was shocking.

“It is unacceptable to see so many wounded people. Their lives must be spared and the security of those who care for them guaranteed.” ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said.

He urged both sides to spare civilians and let aid workers do their work.

The chief U.N. aid official for Gaza appealed to the international community to protect Gaza’s civilians, saying nowhere in the territory of 1.5 million people was safe any longer with the conflict becoming “a test of our humanity”.

Trying to end the bloodshed, Ban planned to meet leaders in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria. He has indicated he will have no direct contact with Hamas.

U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Ban also would “demand that urgent humanitarian assistance be provided without restriction to those in need”.

In Cairo, a Hamas delegation resumed talks on a ceasefire plan proposed by Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel and has made peace with the Jewish state.

Hamas says Israel must pull back all its troops under a ceasefire and end the blockade of the Gaza Strip that it tightened after the group seized the coastal enclave from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.

Israel has rebuffed as “unworkable” a U.N. Security Council ceasefire resolution last week and said a truce must ensure Hamas cannot rearm through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

Israeli tanks have moved closer to the densely populated downtown area of the city of Gaza, but have not entered, residents said.

Human rights groups have reported shortages of vital supplies, including water, in the Gaza Strip. A fuel shortage has brought frequent power blackouts.

Israel has permitted almost daily truck shipments of food and medicine. But Human Rights Watch said Israel’s daily three hour break in attacks to facilitate the supply of humanitarian aid to Gazans was “woefully insufficient”. (Additional reporting by Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Beirut bureau and Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; Writing by Jeffrey Heller and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel amid Gaza fighting | International | Reuters

Around 30,000 people demonstrated in Brussels, some carrying models of bloodied Gaza children, while more than 1,000 formed a human chain to march through Rome as Italy’s defence minister warned Muslims against provocative prayers in public squares.

“Enough with the bombs, enough with the massacre, enough with the Gaza occupation, enough with the destruction of lives and houses and enough with the death of children,” said Chiara Palladini, a demonstrator in Rome.

Smaller numbers of supporters of Israel also made their voices heard, in London, Manchester and Prague. In Dublin they gathered waving Israeli flags and singing psalms in lashing rain, separated by a police barricade from a rival pro-Palestinian rally.

“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has a right to defend itself,” said Annette Horseman, 43, from Dublin.

Gilad Handler, 25, an Israeli high-tech worker living in Dublin, said the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties was difficult for Israelis.

“We don’t want war with Gaza,” he said. “But it’s enough getting years of rocket barrages on our heads from there.”

Israeli forces edged into Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 29 Palestinians on the 16th day of the offensive, as fighting raged in defiance of international cease-fire calls.

The Palestinian death toll since Israel’s offensive began stands at 874, many of them civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Israel says thirteen Israelis — three civilians hit by rocket fire and 10 soldiers — have been killed.

Israel wants a halt to rocket attacks and arrangements to ensure that Hamas cannot rearm through tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border.

PEACEFUL RALLIES

A London gathering of 4,000 pro-Israel demonstrators, some carrying Israeli flags and placards saying “End Hamas Terror!,” passed off without a repeat of Saturday’s violent scenes when about 20,000 Palestinian supporters confronted riot police.

Thousands of demonstrators including high-profile actors and politicians marched peacefully through Madrid demanding increased international action against Israel’s offensive, some chanting “We are all Palestinians.”

The Israeli embassy in the Spanish capital issued a statement asking why demonstrators there had never protested against aggression by Hamas and calling recent anti-Israel rallies “a double standard.”

In Italy, where thousands marched in Naples and Genoa to demand an end to violence in Gaza, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said he did not oppose protests but called public Muslim prayers by demonstrators a challenge to peace.

On Saturday, thousands of Muslims knelt in prayer before Milan’s central train station. A week ago Muslims held prayers in front of the city centre cathedral, angering right-wing politicians in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.

“I say enough of the provocations of Islamists in Milan,” La Russa, from the right-wing National Alliance, told Il Giornale newspaper on Sunday. “In Milan, a legitimate demonstration ended in a deliberately provocative mosque under the open sky.”

While Sunday’s protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, a Reuters photographer in Brussels reported windows had been smashed and a car overturned and set alight in the area where the city’s anti-Israel march had ended.

Palestinian and Israel supporters rally across Europe | UK | Reuters