Israel Rejects Intensified Push for Cease-Fire

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Israel Tightens Grip on Gaza Strip

Israel continues its military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip as diplomats in Cairo suggest tentative progress in their efforts to reach a cease-fire.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

As the Israeli military campaign entered its 10th day, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the operation would continue indefinitely. "Hamas has suffered a very heavy blow, but we have yet to reach the goals we set for ourselves, so the offensive continues," he told Israeli legislators.

Israel launched about 40 airstrikes in Gaza on Monday and targeted more than 150 makeshift tunnels along the strip's southern border with Egypt, said Maj. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military.

Military engineering units also hunted for the smugglers' tunnels from ground level, Israeli officials said. About 300 smugglers' tunnels exist along the border area between Gaza and Egypt, a nine-mile stretch known as the Philadelphia corridor, according to the Israeli military.

Leibovich said Israeli forces also have been targeting weapons caches and the homes of Hamas officials. She blamed Hamas for the rising number of civilian casualties, accusing the Islamist movement of storing explosives in mosques and buildings in densely populated areas.

"We don't have any intention whatsoever to target civilians. The targets we choose are military targets," Leibovich said. "If there were civilian casualties, it would only be under the responsibility of Hamas."

The Israeli army said it allowed 80 trucks carrying emergency supplies to enter Gaza on Monday. But relief agencies said much more was needed. They estimated that two-thirds of Gaza's 1.5 million people were without electricity because several major power lines servicing Gaza from Israel had been cut or damaged.

"Large numbers of people, including many children, are hungry," Maxwell Gaylard, the United Nations' humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Jerusalem. "They are cold. They are without ready access to medical facilities. They are without access to electricity and running water. They are terrified. That by any measure is a humanitarian crisis."

Water supplies for half a million Gaza residents are expected to run out in the coming days, the Red Cross said; water pumps have ceased to function because of the lack of electricity and the lack of fuel to run backup generators.

The Red Cross also complained that an unspecified number of wounded Gazans had died after waiting hours for ambulances to arrive, blaming a lack of coordination between Israeli and Palestinian officials to guarantee their safe passage. "This is of course absolutely appalling," said Antoine Grand, head of the International Red Cross office in Gaza. "The ambulances must reach the injured as fast as possible."

Accounts of conditions inside the territory are difficult to confirm. Israel has banned foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

In New York, the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, Riad Malki, pressed for the passage of a new U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire and the deployment of foreign peacekeepers to monitor Gaza's borders and protect Palestinian civilians. Malki also voiced frustration that President-elect Barack Obama had yet to comment on the violence in Gaza, contrasting his silence with his public criticism of the gunmen who carried out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

"We expected him really to be open and responsive to the situation in Gaza, and still we expect him to make a strong statement regarding this as soon as possible," Malki said.

Arab foreign ministers began arriving at U.N. headquarters Monday to show support for the Palestinian diplomatic push to step up international pressure on Israel to halt its military operation in Gaza. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the Security Council on Tuesday afternoon to urge passage of the cease-fire resolution.

France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, in a meeting with the Arab foreign ministers, outlined the broad elements of a possible cease-fire pact, according to a European diplomat. It would involve a halt to Palestinian rockets and Israeli military operations. It would also include provisions for the free distribution of humanitarian goods to Gaza and for the protection of Palestinian civilians. The agreement would contain a plan for monitoring implementation of the cease-fire, possibly involving foreign monitors. It would also call for the resumption of negotiations on a Middle East peace process.

Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel's deputy chief of mission in Washington, said Israel did not think the Security Council was the appropriate forum for reaching a settlement. "This is a counterterrorism operation in our point of view," he said.

Staff writers Dan Eggen and Glenn Kessler in Washington and Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.