Israel hints at Gaza conflict escalation

NO CEASEFIRE: The conflict in Gaza continued on Saturday as truce calls were brushed off. (AFP)

Israel signalled its intent to escalate the conflict in Gaza on Saturday despite mounting calls for a ceasefire, as troops battled Hamas fighters into a third week and the death toll topped 800.

Israeli planes sent a cloud of white leaflets fluttering across the Gaza City skyline warning residents it would soon step up its war on Hamas and other militant groups.

The airforce also carried out more than 40 air strikes overnight and into Saturday, targeting arms manufacturing sites, weapons depots and smuggling tunnels, the army said.

And ground troops, who entered Gaza a week ago, continued to clash with Palestinian fighters across the territory.

In one incident, eight members of the same Palestinian family, including a 12-year-old, were killed during the shelling of the northern town of Jabaliya.

"We were at home when the bombing started," one of the attack's survivors Umm Mohammed told AFP inside a nearby hospital.

"We fled towards another house and the tanks started firing. Several of us were hit."

Israeli forces killed at least 22 people on Saturday, according to Dr Muawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza emergency services.

Since the Israeli offensive began on December 27, at least 821 people have been killed, including 235 children, 93 women, and 12 paramedics, he said.

Another 3,350 people have been wounded, overwhelming Gaza's beleaguered medical facilities.

Hamas and other armed groups meanwhile fired at least eight rockets into Israel, lightly wounding two people.

Egypt has been spearheading US-backed efforts to end the fighting that has sparked spiralling protests across the Muslim world, with President Hosni Mubarak meeting his Palestinian counterpart Mahmud Abbas on Saturday.

A Hamas delegation, including for the first time senior officials from Gaza as well as members of the Islamists' Damascus-based leadership in exile, was also due to hold talks with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.

Abbas pressed Hamas to accept the Egyptian plan "without hesitation," warning that "whoever does not accept (the plan) will be responsible for the continuing aggression and for bloodshed."

Mubarak's plan, unveiled on Tuesday, calls for an immediate truce for a specified period, opening Gaza's border crossings, preventing arms smuggling and a call for Palestinians to resume reconciliation talks.

Israeli officials said Egypt has proposed that Western-backed forces loyal to Abbas - which were violently driven out of Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007 - patrol the Gaza-Egypt border to help prevent arms smuggling.

Both Israel and Hamas have brushed off a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate truce in a territory, already reeling from an 18-month Israeli blockade.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment with Israel's defiance.

But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not bow to "outside influence" and would press ahead with its offensive.

The flyers which rained down on Gaza warned that the military "will soon intensify its operations against the tunnels, arms depots, and terrorists throughout the Gaza Strip."

"For your security and that of your families, you are asked not to approach terrorists, weapons depots and arms," added the flyers, printed in Arabic.

Hamas said it was not consulted on the ceasefire resolution and would not accept a truce that did not see the lifting of the crippling blockade which Israel imposed on the territory after the Islamists seized power in June 2007.

The humanitarian impact of Operation Cast Lead was also becoming more acute with the UN warning that families were going hungry as food supplies dry up.

The United Nations said it would resume staff movements in the enclave where most of the 1.5 million population depend on foreign aid following an apparent Israeli strike on one of its convoys that killed a driver.

But Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency, said the situation remains dire. "We are receiving reports that some people are starting to burn their furniture to bake bread and to cook."

Israel launched its war aiming to end rocket fire against southern towns and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket attacks since the operation began, as Palestinian militants have fired more than 600 rockets, some of them penetrating deeper than ever inside Israel.

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