News Service from House Harris

MID: Fresh air raids across Gaza as toll passes 1,000

GAZA CITY, Jan 15 AFP/AP - Israel has carried out fresh air raids across Gaza and ground troops waged more street battles as its war entered a 20th day and the death toll passed 1,000 despite hopes of a truce.

With UN chief Ban Ki-moon in the region to seek an end to the conflict, diplomats said Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, although the Islamists merely indicated support for its "broad outlines".

The head of Gaza's emergency services Moawiya Hassanein said 1,038 people have been killed in the Hamas-run territory while a further 4,850 people have been wounded since the December 27 launch of Operation Cast Lead.

Israeli warplanes blasted Gaza's southern border with Egypt, carrying out some three dozen bombing raids and sending panicked residents fleeing, witnesses said.

At least 16 people were killed in the night-time raids across the territory, including a 13-year-old boy in a Gaza City neighbourhood and two suspected militants near Jabaliya refugee camp in the north.

In addition, five people were injured in the bombing of a mosque in Rafah, according to medical sources.

The Israeli military said the air force struck nine rocket launch pads and three smuggling tunnels as they pushed on with their bid to prevent the Islamists from firing rockets and missiles across the border.

A total of 15 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza, the army said, a fraction of those fired at the start of the war on December 27. Some were also fired from Lebanon in the second such attack in less than a week.

An air strike early Thursday killed four Palestinian militants near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, hospital officials said.

A United Nations official said an Israeli shell hit a clearly marked UN car emblazoned with UN initials and carrying a UN flag lit with a spotlight in Gaza City, wounding the driver.

"I'm sure it was an Israeli shell targeting the vehicle. I'm not saying it was deliberate targeting," UN official Chris Gunness said, adding that the incident reinforces the UN call for a ceasefire.

Only the driver was in the vehicle, which is used to transport senior UN officials in Gaza.

A senior Israeli defence official said the war, which has killed some 400 civilians and sparked outrage across the Muslim world, could well continue until the January 20 inauguration of US president-elect Barack Obama.

"Israel is still waiting for guarantees on solving the issue of weapon smuggling and things are moving in Cairo," he said on condition of anonymity.

"Nevertheless, Israel is not feeling any pressure at this point to end the operation," he added.

Hamas has remained defiant throughout the campaign, with its prime minister Ismail Haniyeh insisting earlier this week it was nearing victory over the Jewish state.

But a Gaza-based leader of the Islamist group said after talks with officials in Cairo that it did not reject the "broad outlines" of an Egyptian-brokered truce plan, without accepting the plan outright.

"President (Hosni) Mubarak's vision is the only one that was proposed, we don't ask for any amendment to its broad outlines," Salah al-Bardawil told journalists in Cairo.

He said Hamas has "presented to the Egyptian leadership our detailed vision", despite the fact Egyptian and Spanish diplomats said Hamas had accepted the plan.

The Islamists' vision is to be put to senior Israeli defence official Amos Gilad when he visits Cairo to discuss the initiative on Thursday, when diplomatic efforts are to mount for a ceasefire.

These include emergency sessions of the UN General Assembly and Gulf Cooperation Council, and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's meetings with UN Secretary-General Ban and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Israel, whose death toll from the conflict is 13, has made ending the offensive conditional on a complete halt to rocket fire against the south of the country and stemming arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.

On the eve of his visit to Israel, Germany's Steinmeier praised Egypt's peace-brokering in a joint statement with French counterpart Bernard Kouchner.

"Important progress has been made over the past days in identifying workable solutions," they said.

But Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country had severed ties with Israel to protest the Gaza war, a move matched by Venezuela, whose President Hugo Chavez had already expelled Israel's ambassador on January 6.

In a recording posted on the internet entitled "A Call for Jihad to Stop Aggression Against Gaza", al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden called for a holy war to restore "Jerusalem and Palestine".

The offensive has sparked widespread concern about a humanitarian crisis breaking out in one of the world's most densely populated places where the vast majority of the 1.5 million population depends on foreign aid.