Israel Boosts Diplomatic Effort For Gaza
Top Israeli diplomats headed for Egypt and the United States on Friday in what appeared to be a final push toward a cease-fire to end Israel's punishing Gaza offensive against Hamas militants.
In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni are signing an agreement intended to assure the Jewish state that Hamas militants will not be able to rearm if it agrees to a cease-fire.
A Senior State Department official told CBS News State Department correspondent Charles Wolfson that the Memorandum of Understanding is "basically designed to cut off the re-arming of Hamas in Gaza."
Although it is worded in general language and short on specifics, the MOU does call for the sharing of intelligence, and it is designed to have the U.S. and Israel work with regional states to stop the flow of weapons into Gaza.
Rice told reporters that she hoped some European countries would work out similar bilateral agreements with the Israelis.
"As you know, there are a number of conditions that need to be obtained if a cease-fire is to be durable," Rice told reporters. "And among them is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran.
"This we see as part of a broader international effort on the information sharing" on how to deal with weapons shipments," she said.
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.
"I strongly urge Israeli leadership and government to declare a ceasefire unilaterally," Ban said from Ramallah, the seat of the West Bank government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas' fierce rival. "It's time to think about a unilateral cease-fire from the Israeli government."
Speaking at a news conference alongside Abbas later Friday, Ban confirmed negotiations had thus far failed to yield an agreement.
An Israeli government response was not immediately available. Ban is on a weeklong trip to the region meant to promote a truce after both sides ignored a U.N. resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.
Some 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on Dec. 27, including 346 children, according to U.N. figures. Thirteen Israelis have been killed, four by rocket fire.
Following a day in which Israeli forces killed a senior Hamas official and shelled a U.N. compound, the Israeli military kept up its pressure on Hamas.
Before dawn Friday, Israeli aircraft struck about 40 targets all over Gaza, the military said. An official statement said targets included smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border, a rocket launcher ready for firing, and a mosque that housed a tunnel entrance and was also used to store arms.
Later, Palestinian medical officials reported that an 11-year-old girl was killed in a shelling in northern Gaza and witnesses reported an air strike on a Gaza City mosque as people were headed there for Friday prayers.
Militant rockets, meanwhile, struck five times in southern Israel, causing no injuries, the military said.
Chief Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad arrived in Cairo on Friday for his second visit in two days to seek clarifications and express Israeli views about the latest Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire.
Before leaving for Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made it clear that halting arms smuggling was a crucial part of any truce deal. "Israel is going to retain its right to defend itself anyway, also when it comes to the smuggling of weapons, not only to rockets being fired at Israel," she said.
CBS News correspondent Robert Berger reports deep differences remain over the terms of a cease-fire. The key sticking points are Israel's demand to prevent Hamas weapons smuggling from Egypt and Hamas's demand to lift the crippling Israeli blockade on Gaza.
Hamas' senior leader, Khaled Mashaal, reiterated his stance Thursday that a cease-fire would only be possible once Israel, "halts the aggression, withdraws its occupation troops from the Gaza Strip, lifts the siege and opens all border crossings, including Rafah," reported CBS News' George Baghdadi.
"These are our demands and we don't accept any political movement that does not accept them," Mashaal said in a televised address from his headquarters in Damascus, Syria.
The Bush administration was racing in its final days to negotiate a deal on American support for mediation efforts under which the U.S. would give technical support and expertise to prevent Hamas from rearming, said U.S. and Israeli diplomats.
The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Israel wants a total end to Hamas' rocket launches into Israel and an arms embargo on Gaza's militant rulers.
Hamas has demanded an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the opening of blockaded border crossings.
A small crowd of mourners buried Siam in Gaza City on Friday. His white-shrouded body was draped in a green Hamas flag and some of the people who carried it chanted, "Greetings from Hamas!" One man fired an assault rifle in the area in a traditional salute.
Siam was seen as a main architect of the violent Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, when Hamas fighters expelled forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He was the highest Hamas official killed in the offensive. "We are talking about a key person in terms of logistics in the field, and also in the political sense," said Bassem Zbeidy, a Hamas expert in the West Bank.
He called Siam's death a "huge loss for Hamas," but noted that the movement is easily capable of generating new leaders, often more radical than their predecessors.
As the Israelis pressed forward, Gaza militants kept up their rocket fire at Israel, firing about 20 rockets on Thursday. One long-range rocket hit the city of Beersheba, wounding five people, including a 7-year-old boy who was in critical condition, hospital officials said.
Israel infuriated the U.N. Thursday when it shelled the world body's headquarters in Gaza City, where hundreds of Gazans were seeking cover from the fighting among food and supplies meant for refugees.
Also taking Israeli fire were buildings where foreign correspondents work, triggering a stern protest from the Foreign Press Association, which said the military was informed about exactly where the journalists' buildings are located.
The strikes on the U.N. compound and the reporters' offices were a hint of what could happen if Israel decides to widen its operation in Gaza.
Up to now Israel has pelted areas of Gaza with heavy artillery fire to frighten civilians away before sending in ground forces - a way to reduce Israeli casualties as well as harm to Palestinian civilians. The farther the Israelis press into the overcrowded city, the more such incidents can be expected.