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

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

But the entire region should brace itself for a “protracted campaign” if the border between the Gaza strip and Egypt – through which Hamas militants are supplied – is not secured, Mr Blair warned.

Israel today demanded that Hamas be prevented from rearming as a main condition of any ceasefire. Mark Regev, a spokesman for Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Prime Minister, said: “That is the make-or-break issue.”

Mr Blair, the Middle East envoy, said Hamas and Egypt are in contact over the supply routes that run through the Egyptian border into the Palestinian enclave and Cairo is prepared in principle to take action in order to dry up the flow of missiles and guns into the area.

A delegation from Hamas was today in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire with Israel as proposed by Egypt. The talks with the Palestinian delegation, headed by Emad al-Alami and Mohammed Nasr from Hamas’s Syrian-based political leadership, represent the first such contact since fighting began.

“We will speak with Egyptian leaders about the aggression in Gaza,” Mr Nasr said. “Our position is clear: end the aggression, withdraw (Israeli forces) from Gaza, open the crossing points, especially Rafah, with a total lifting of the blockade.”

The Hamas delegation was to meet Egyptian intelligence officials, headed by Omar Suleiman, a security official said. “We asked for a Hamas delegation with capability and authority to be sent to examine how a ceasefire can be achieved,” Ahmed Abul Gheit Egyptian Foreign Minister, was quoted as saying in the state-owned Al-Ahram daily.

The destruction of Egypt-Gaza tunnels around Rafah is a key Israeli objective in the war, aimed at preventing Hamas being able to re-arm with rockets.

Tunnels are however also a conduit for food supplies and basic needs, such as medicines, for many of the 1.5 million people in the territory which has been under tight Israeli blockade for more than 18 months.

The casualty toll escalated after a further night of fierce and increasingly chaotic battle which saw Israel intensify its ground offensive. Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 30 wounded in a “friendly fire” incident, when the building they were occupying was hit by one of their own tanks. The Israelis today moved troops into Khan Younis in southern Gaza widening the ground assault it launched four days ago after a week of air strikes failed to stamp out cross-border rocket fire.

While international discussions to reach a cessation of violence continued, an Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in a United Nations-run school where people had sought refuge from the fighting, medical officials said.

Israel said it had killed 130 Hamas fighters since it launched the ground offensive on Saturday night, as the Islamist guerrillas fought pitched street battles using mortars, rockets grenades and small arms. The conflict has so far claimed more than 500 lives – a quarter of them civilians according to the UN.

A delegation from Hamas was today in Cairo to discuss a ceasefire with Israel as proposed by Egypt. The talks with the Palestinian delegation, headed by Emad al-Alami and Mohammed Nasr from Hamas’s Syrian-based political leadership, represent the first such contact since fighting began.

“We will speak with Egyptian leaders about the aggression in Gaza,” Mr Nasr said. “Our position is clear: end the aggression, withdraw (Israeli forces) from Gaza, open the crossing points, especially Rafah, with a total lifting of the blockade.”

The Hamas delegation was to meet Egyptian intelligence officials, headed by Omar Suleiman, a security official said. “We asked for a Hamas delegation with capability and authority to be sent to examine how a ceasefire can be achieved,” Ahmed Abul Gheit Egyptian Foreign Minister, was quoted as saying in the state-owned Al-Ahram daily.

The destruction of Egypt-Gaza tunnels around Rafah is a key Israeli objective in the war, aimed at preventing Hamas being able to re-arm with rockets.

Tunnels are however also a conduit for food supplies and basic needs, such as medicines, for many of the 1.5 million people in the territory which has been under tight Israeli blockade for more than 18 months.

The casualty toll escalated after a further night of fierce and increasingly chaotic battle which saw Israel intensify its ground offensive. Three Israeli soldiers were killed and 30 wounded in a “friendly fire” incident, when the building they were occupying was hit by one of their own tanks. The Israelis today moved troops into Khan Younis in southern Gaza widening the ground assault it launched four days ago after a week of air strikes failed to stamp out cross-border rocket fire.

While international discussions to reach a cessation of violence continued, an Israeli air strike killed three Palestinians in a United Nations-run school where people had sought refuge from the fighting, medical officials said.

Israel said it had killed 130 Hamas fighters since it launched the ground offensive on Saturday night, as the Islamist guerrillas fought pitched street battles using mortars, rockets grenades and small arms. The conflict has so far claimed more than 500 lives – a quarter of them civilians according to the UN.

All “responsible” players in the region should be working towards an immediate cessation of the hostilities which have now entered their 11th day, the Mr Blair said.

The former Prime Minister spoke from Jerusalem where he is working as a peace envoy for the quartet the EU, UN, US and Russia, involved in brokering peace in the Middle East.

Mr Blair, who yesterday spoke to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There are circumstances in which we could get an immediate ceasefire, and that is what people want to see.

“These circumstances focus very much around clear action to cut off the supply of arms and money through the tunnels that go from Egypt into Gaza.

“I think if there were strong, clear, definitive action on that, that gives us the best context to give us an immediate ceasefire and start to change this situation.

“From my conversations, not just with Tzipi Livni but the Israeli Prime Minister and Defence Minister and others, I think that is the one basis on which we could bring a quick halt to this. Otherwise, I think we are in for a protracted campaign.”

European foreign policy chief Javier Solana has indicated that Europe would be prepared to monitor Rafah. During a stop in Egypt yesterday Mr Solana, who has been touring the Middle East on a diplomatic mission with the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, said that European monitors – once stationed on Gaza’s border with Egypt – would be ready to return to work at the crossing after a ceasefire is achieved.

Under a 2005 deal, the Rafah crossing can only be opened to normal traffic if European Union observers and Palestinian security forces are at the border, which is also monitored by Israel.

Mr Blair said that talks on the issue were ongoing within the international community and between Israel and Egypt. And he said that, while he and other international representatives refuse to speak to Hamas, the movement’s leadership in Gaza was well aware of the position from their own discussions with Egypt.

It was “difficult to judge” whether Hamas was ready to take the necessary steps to end the violence, he said.

“If they [Hamas] truly do care about the people in Gaza, there is a possible way through this which would have an immediate halt and cessation of hostilities, and that is obviously what any responsible person should try to achieve.

Mr Blair said he had made representations to the Israeli authorities about access for humanitarian supplies to Gaza.

He said: “For anyone living in Gaza, it is hell, it is bound to be. You are in a situation where you are in an effective war zone.

“It is not a very large piece of territory, it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hamas positions are well dug in actually inside the civilian population, so the notion that having a war going on around Gaza is going to be anything other than a humanitarian catastrophe is absurd, obviously.”

Mr Blair urged Barack Obama, the incoming US President, to engage with the Middle East peace process as soon as he is inaugurated on January 20.

“The most important thing for the new administration is to grip this, focus on it,” he said. “It is in my view absolutely central to the security not just of this part of the world, but all the world. We have got to grip it and sort it and if we do that with the requisite dedication and energy and commitment, we can resolve it.”

Sealing Egypt border ‘key to Gaza ceasefire’ – Times Online

“We agree,“ Nkunda said in French, but he had asked Obasanjo to tell President Joseph Kabila’s government to also respect a suspension of military hostilities.

“We support his mission … he has got support from the international community … we are behind him and we are going to do our part so we can get on with this peace,“ the rebel leader, wearing a grey suit, told reporters earlier in English.

Obasanjo met Nkunda at his home village in the foothills of the Virunga mountains, close to the Rwanda and Uganda borders. As they met, fresh fighting flared between rebel and government forces to the northwest of Jomba in North Kivu province.

Obasanjo, who held talks on Saturday with Congolese President Joseph Kabila, is seeking to prevent the fighting in North Kivu from escalating into a repeat of a wider 1998-2003 Congo war that sucked in six neighbouring states.

The U.N. envoy, who flew back to the North Kivu provincial capital Goma, said the talks with Nkunda went “extremely well“.

“Nkunda wants to maintain a ceasefire but it’s like dancing the tango. You can’t do it alone,“ Obasanjo said. He and Nkunda, who carried a cane topped with an eagle head, danced with rebels and children outside the Jomba church compound where they met.

Weeks of combat between Nkunda’s Tutsi rebels and government troops and their militia allies have displaced around a quarter of a million civilians, creating what aid agencies call a “catastrophic“ humanitarian situation in east Congo.

Earlier, U.N. peacekeepers reported heavy artillery, rocket and small arms fire near the village of Ndeko, about 110 km (70 miles) north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Nkunda played down the latest clash, saying it was “not a problem“ and he had contacted the government to try to end it.

A U.N. military spokesman, Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, told Reuters: “It is difficult to say who started it but we can confirm it was between the CNDP and the army. We treated six army soldiers who were wounded and need to be evacuated“.

ETHNIC ENEMIES

The roots of the North Kivu conflict stem from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutu militias killed about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus before fleeing into Congo.

That led to two wars and a humanitarian crisis that killed more than five million people, mostly from hunger and disease.

In 2004, Nkunda rejected peace deals that ended the last war. He accuses Kabila of arming and using a Rwandan Hutu rebel group, the FDLR, which includes perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, to fight with the weak and chaotic Congolese army.

For his part, the Congolese president accuses neighbouring Rwanda, whose soldiers fought in Congo’s last war, ostensibly to hunt down the Hutu militia, of supporting Nkunda’s rebellion.

Nkunda spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa blamed government forces for the latest fighting on Sunday. “The army attacked us this morning and, as we warned, we have decided to push them back until we no longer consider them a threat.“

But he said this would not derail the peace talks. “He (Obasanjo) is not blind. He will see who is responsible for the clashes. While he talks peace, the government attacks us.“

The Congolese army was not available for comment.

Nkunda initially took up arms saying he was fighting to defend fellow Tutsis in Congo from attack by the Rwandan Hutu FDLR. But, after marching to the gates of Goma last month, he is now calling for direct negotiations with the president.

Kabila has so far rejected talks.

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