Israeli airstrikes have targeted the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, as part of Israel’s response to an attack on one of its frontier patrols on Tuesday.
Residents near the town of Rafah fled as missiles hit tunnels through which Israel says militants smuggle arms.
The strikes came ahead of US envoy George Mitchell’s visit to promote a permanent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Both sides declared ceasefires on 17 and 18 January to end Israel’s three-week offensive on Gaza.

The BBC is facing an escalating crisis over its refusal to screen an aid appeal for Gaza.
The decision was bitterly criticised by a powerful coalition of politicians, charities and religious leaders.
More than 11,000 complaints from the public had been received by Sunday night, against only 68 messages of support.
Thousands of protesters massed outside BBC headquarters in London and demonstrators invaded the Glasgow office of BBC Scotland.

European Union foreign ministers meeting with their Arab counterparts in Brussels on Sunday called for the two rival Palestinian factions to unite to negotiate a lasting peace with Israel.
The European Union foreign ministers said it was critical that the rival Hamas and Fatah political factions reconcile, so the border crossings of the Gaza Strip can be opened for humanitarian and other assistance after three weeks of conflict with Israel.
European politicians said it is essential for the Palestinians to speak with a single voice.
Gaza medics say some 1,300 Palestinians were killed …

GENEVA (Reuters) – Israel’s invasion of Gaza has strengthened the hand of extremists and only a credible independent investigation into alleged wrongdoing can quieten growing Palestinian anger, a U.N. aid official said on Friday.
John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, called for new U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell to talk to ordinary people in Gaza as part of a “new track” in diplomacy.
U.S. President Barack Obama named Mitchell, a former U.S. Senator who helped settle the conflict in Northern Ireland, on Thursday to …

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Now that there is a cease-fire in place, Israelis are asking whether the 22-day war against Hamas in Gaza achieved its aims.
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.

For the first time in three weeks a fragile peace prevailed in the shattered Gaza Strip yesterday, after Hamas responded to Israel’s unilateral ceasefire by announcing a week-long truce of its own.
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.

United Nation helicopters circle in the cloudless sky above South Lebanon. The bumpy road below them is dotted with Lebanese army checkpoints.
Past them lies what is known here as the land of resistance – the villages where the Shia militant group Hezbollah controls hearts and minds.
From here, its fighters battled Israel in a fierce conflict in 2006 and now the portraits of Hezbollah fighters killed in that war look down from the roadside billboards.
Some look straight at Israel, which stretches just a couple of hundred of yards away beyond the …

The World Health Organization is appealing to Israel to refrain from hitting hospitals, health care centers and paramedics. It says dozens of hospitals and ambulances have been hit by Israeli fire during the three-week conflict despite receiving assurances from Israeli authorities that they would be safe.
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 …

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel announced late Saturday night that the Israeli military would begin a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza within hours while negotiations continued on how to stop the resupply of Hamas through smuggling from Egypt.
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 CITY (AFP) — Israel was poised on Saturday to call a unilateral halt to its three-week-old offensive on Gaza after winning pledges from the United States and Egypt to help prevent arms smuggling into the Hamas-run enclave.
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 …