Israel hits Gaza as truce efforts build

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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However, Israel rebuffed at least two major elements of the ceasefire terms outlined by the Islamist movement, and Israeli bombardement continued, albeit with less intensity than on Thursday. And in Doha, Hamas's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal told Arab leaders his group would not accept Israeli conditions for the ceasefire and would fight on until Israel ended hostilities. He urged participants at an emergency Arab meeting on Gaza to cut all ties with Israel. The inauguration of new U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday is seen by some as the time by which Israel will bow to mounting international pressure and call off its attacks, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Israeli envoy Amos Gilad returned from Cairo after further discussions of Egypt's truce plan as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni headed to the United States to sign an agreement on preventing arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. Clamping down on the porous Gaza-Egypt border, where hundreds of underground tunnels form Hamas's main rear supply route, has been a key Israeli demand for ending the offensive that has killed more than 1,100 people in 21 days.

"We hope we're heading toward the end," government spokesman Mark Regev told Agence France-Presse. "There is a lot of diplomatic activity and at the same time the military pressure on Hamas continues."

U.N. head’s call
In the West Bank, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged Israel to immediately stop its three-week-old war, meant to halt militant rocket fire on southern Israel from Gaza. "It's time to think about a unilateral cease-fire from the Israeli government," The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

But a senior Israeli official told AFP that the government did not intend to lessen its military strikes in the impoverished territory. A day after Israeli raids set landmark buildings ablaze in Gaza's main city, the military hammered the territory with some 40 airstrikes against fighters, tunnels and a mosque suspected of being used as a weapons store, the army said. At least 23 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal Al-Hawa and elsewhere after medics rushed to the neighborhood.