Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has said the military has nearly completed the goals set for the war on Gaza, as ground forces continue to advance on the edges of Gaza City.
“Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself,” he said at an Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday.
He told ministers that Israel had “dealt Hamas an unprecedented blow … It will never be the same Hamas,” Oved Yehezkel, the Israeli cabinet secretary, said.

COLOMBO (AFP) — Helicopter gunships and war planes attacked suspected Tamil Tiger strong points in northern Sri Lanka on Monday while at least 19 rebels were killed in ground battles, the defence ministry said.
Aircraft hit two positions of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at Iranamadu, just south of their political capital of Kilinochchi which fell to government forces earlier this month, the ministry said.

Doctors in Gaza City have told Al Jazeera that people have been admitted suffering burns consistent with the use of the controversial chemical white phosphorus.
Human rights campaigners say that Israeli forces have used the munition, which can burn away human flesh to the bone, over Gaza City and Jabaliya in recent days.
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said: “Doctors here say they are seeing unprecedented levels of deep burns.
“They cannot categorically say that white phosphorus is being used, they are saying that the munitions …

Sri Lankan troops fought toward the shrinking strongholds of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels on Sunday, the military said, seeking a crushing battlefield victory to end one of Asia’s longest insurgent ground wars.
The military said it had killed at least 24 rebels after a series of confrontations on Saturday in the small northeastern wedge of jungle which is all that is left of the Tigers’ self-proclaimed state.
In the course of fighting, troops captured two rebel camps and a 2.5 km (1 mile) long airstrip with two hangars the military said …

Israel and Hamas vowed to keep fighting on Sunday, ignoring international calls to stop the Gaza conflict which entered a 16th day with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian guerrillas.
Hamas’s leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist group would not consider a truce until Israel ended its military offensive and lifted a blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Israel sent tanks deeper into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave and threatened to intensify its air and ground assaults against militants who fired more rockets into the Jewish state.

Israel has dropped leaflets on the Gaza Strip warning residents that it is to escalate its military action.
There is speculation the leaflets may mean Israel will adopt new tactics in its battle with Palestinian militants.
Israel says it has attacked dozens more Hamas targets, including what it says were rocket-launching sites, weapons stores and smuggling tunnels.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush last year rejected a secret Israeli request for an air strike against the main Iranian nuclear complex using US bunker-busting bombs, The New York Times reported on its website.
But citing unnamed senior US and foreign officials, the newspaper said Bush had authorized a new covert operation aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons.
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In July 2006, Israeli troops were two weeks into their unsuccessful campaign to rescue captured soldier Gilad Shalit when the Shia Muslim political and militant movement attacked from the north.
Its fighters launched dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars at Israel and seized two more soldiers and killed eight others in cross-border raids.
It was seen as a dramatic gesture of solidarity with the Palestinians, but Israel’s response was far more dramatic and devastating to Lebanon.

JERUSALEM — A few weeks ago, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was considered a dead man walking in Israeli politics. Members of his Labor Party were plotting to replace him after elections on Feb. 10, if not before. Under his leadership, the storied party of David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir had sunk so low in the polls that there was serious talk it might disappear.
No one is talking like that now. Twelve days into a punishing war that he is leading against Hamas in Gaza, Labor’s poll numbers are spiking. Mr. …

JERUSALEM — Israel’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza threatened to broaden on Thursday as at least three rockets were fired into the north of Israel from Lebanon.
The rockets, presumably launched in support of Hamas, could presage the opening of a second front. The Israeli Army, in a brief statement, said it “responded with fire against the source of the rockets,” which landed near the town of Nahariya. Two Israelis were slightly wounded, the police said.