Israel suggests possible US role in Gaza truce
JERUSALEM – The director of Israel's foreign ministry is on his way to Washington to discuss a possible American role in security on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
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Israel says a halt in smuggling must be part of any cease-fire deal. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor says it's not clear what role the U.S. might play in securing the porous border, where underground tunnels have served as arms smuggling routes for Hamas.
Palmor says it's possible the Americans could provide technology and that director Aharon Abromovich will discuss the matter with diplomats and congressional officials.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have died in a two-week Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Red Cross says Gaza humanitarian situation 'shocking'
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JERUSALEM (AFP) – The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is "shocking", the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said after a visit to a hospital in the embattled territory.
"I saw this dramatic humanitarian situation. There's an increasing number of women and children being wounded and going to hospitals," Jakob Kellenberger told reporters in Jerusalem.
"It is shocking. It hurts when you see these wounded people and the types of wounds they have. And I think that in addition the number of people coming to these hospitals is increasing," he said.
The Red Cross president called for improved access for ambulances inside Gaza seeking to recover the wounded and to rescue civilians sheltering from the fighting, saying Israel's daily three-hour pause in operations is "not sufficient."
"It is a positive step that you have a three-hour stop in the fighting, for doing humanitarian work, but it is not sufficient," he said.
"Civilians who are being wounded, who are being trapped with problems of hunger, without water, you must be able to say that you can reach them."
Kellenberger -- who also visited the Israeli border town of Sderot, which has been hit by hundreds of Palestinian rockets since the war began -- urged both sides in the conflict to differentiate between militants and civilians.
He said medical supplies are holding up in Gaza, where over 1,000 people have been killed in heavy fighting and aerial bombardments since the December 27 launch of the largest-ever Israeli offensive on the territory.
"In general (medics) did not complain about the lack of equipment or materials," he said. "In fact there are a lot of goods coming in" although Israel has sealed Gaza off from all but humanitarian aid since the Hamas movement seized power in June 2007.
Kellenberger said he had seen "no evidence" of anyone wounded by phosphorous bombs, a weapon designed to deploy a smoke screen on the battlefield that Israel has been accused of using in civilian areas.
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GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israel carried out a fresh wave of air raids across Gaza after nightfall on Wednesday and ground forces waged more street battles as the death toll from its war passed 1,000 despite hopes of a truce.
After United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in the region seeking to end a war now in its 19th day, diplomats said Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, although the Islamists merely indicated support for its broad outlines.
Doctors said around 1,020 people have been killed in the Hamas-run territory while a further 4,580 people have been wounded since the launch of Operation Cast Lead on December 27.
Israeli warplanes blasted Gaza's southern border with Egypt, carrying out some three dozen bombing raids and sending panicked residents fleeing, witnesses said.
At least 10 people were killed in the night-time raids across the territory, including a 13-year-old boy in a southwestern neighbourhood of Gaza City.
The Israeli army said the air force struck nine rocket launch pads and three smuggling tunnels as they pushed on with their bid to prevent the Islamists from firing rockets and missiles across the border.
A total of 15 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza, the army said, a fraction of the rockets fired at the start of the war on December 27.
A senior Israeli defence official told AFP that the war, which has killed some 400 civilians and has sparked outrage across the Muslim world, could well continue until the January 20 inauguration of US president-elect Barack Obama.
"Israel is still waiting for guarantees on solving the issue of weapon smuggling and things are moving in Cairo," he said on condition of anonymity.
"Nevertheless, Israel is not feeling any pressure at this point to end the operation," he added.
Hamas has remained defiant throughout the campaign, with its prime minister Ismail Haniya insisting earlier this week that it was nearing victory over the Jewish state.
But a Gaza-based leader of the Islamist group said following talks with officials in Cairo that it did not reject the "broad outlines" of an Egyptian-brokered truce plan, without accepting the plan outright.
"President (Hosni) Mubarak's vision is the only one that was proposed, we don't ask for any amendment to its broad outlines," Salah al-Bardawil told journalists in Cairo.
He said Hamas has "presented to the Egyptian leadership our detailed vision," despite the fact that Egyptian and Spanish diplomats said Hamas had accepted the plan.
The Islamists' vision will be put to senior Israeli defence official Amos Gilad when he visits Cairo on Thursday to discuss the initiative.
Israel has made ending the offensive conditional on a complete halt to rocket fire against the south of the country and stemming arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.
In Cairo, Ban again pleaded for "an immediate and durable ceasefire," at the start of a trip that will take him to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and an Arab League summit next Monday in Kuwait.
The diplomatic fallout from Israeli's deadliest ever offensive in the impoverished strip became evident when a senior European Union official said talks on upgrading ties with the Jewish state have been put on hold.
"Both sides realise it is a convenient time for a time-out," Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, head of the European Commission delegation to Israel, said.
And Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country had severed ties with Israel to protest the Gaza war, following the January 6 decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his socialist ally, to expel Israel's ambassador.
In a recording posted on the Internet entitled "A Call for Jihad to Stop Aggression Against Gaza," Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden called for a holy war to restore "Jerusalem and Palestine."
The Al-Qaeda leader also criticised the Arab handling of the Gaza conflict.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since December 27.
The offensive has sparked widespread concern about a humanitarian crisis breaking out in one of the world's most densely populated places where the vast majority of the 1.5 million population depends on foreign aid.
The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking after a visit to Gaza's main hospital, described the situation as "shocking".
"I saw this dramatic humanitarian situation. There's an increasing number of women and children being wounded and going to hospitals," Jakob Kellenberger told reporters in Jerusalem.
Prior to the war, Gaza was already reeling from a punishing Israeli blockade that Israel imposed after Hamas, the Islamist movement sworn to the Jewish state's destruction, violently seized power in the Mediterranean coastal territory in June 2007.
Meanwhile rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into northern Israel on Wednesday without causing injuries or damage, with no group claiming responsibility for the second such attack in less than a week.
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