Gaza violence rages on despite UN’s truce call

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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Israeli jets and helicopters bombarded the Gaza Strip Friday and Hamas fired a barrage of rockets into southern Israel, as Israel's government said it will press forward with its deadly offensive despite a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the Security Council resolution calling for an "immediate and durable" cease-fire as unworkable. "The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will continue to operate in order to defend the citizens of Israel and will carry out the task it was given for the operation," said acting PM in a statement, which was released as the Israeli security cabinet met to debate how to proceed with the two-week-old campaign, according to Agence France-Presse.

A Hamas official in Beirut, Raafat Morra, said his group was also rejecting the resolution, because "it is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people." "This resolution does not take into account the aspirations and the main objectives of the Palestinians and as such we do not feel bound by it," he added.

As the death toll from Operation Cast Lead neared more than 770, the 15-member Security Council gave its near unanimous approval to a resolution calling for a cease-fire leading to the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces from Gaza. In an apparent reversal of earlier promises to Arab states, the United States on Thursday abstained from voting. An exiled Hams leader said on Friday Washington appeared to want to give Israel more time to persist with the Gaza offensive.

"By not voting for the resolution and by not vetoing it, the United States is sending a clear signal that it supports the resolution but after a while," deputy political leader Moussa Abu Marzouk told Hezbollah's al-Manar television from Damascus.

Talks in trouble
In all, Israel's air force said it hit over 50 targets. Palestinian medics counted nearly 20 dead, including civilians. Friday's deaths in Gaza pushed the Palestinian death toll to about 760 in the two-week-old conflict, at least half of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials. Eleven Israelis have died.

Details are emerging of other incidents in which civilians were killed. A U.N. agency said Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in Gaza City on Jan. 4, then shelled the building 24 hours later, killing 30 people. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report was based on eyewitness testimony. It added details to an incident previously reported by The Associated Press and an Israeli human rights group. The Israeli military had no comment on the report.

Meanwhile, Egyptian peace initiative, brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier in the week, seems to be in trouble on Friday. "The truce talks are going nowhere at the moment," a senior European diplomat told Reuters. "There is a growing sense that the Egyptian-French plan is not going to work."

Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas continued to bombard residents of southern Israel, wounding at one person. Rockets hit Friday morning across southern Israel, including in and around Beersheba and Ashkelon.

Despite mounting civilian casualties, the onslaught in Gaza has solid support among Israeli voters who go to the polls in a month. A poll on Friday showed over 90 percent support among Israelis.

A poll showed that Defense Minister Ehud Barak's Labour Party has held on to sharp gains it has made since war began, though it still trails Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's Kadima, which is running close behind the right-wing Likud opposition.