Israelis consider 48-hour truce

Hamas cease-fire a requirement Ground offensive in Gaza readied

The number of targets available for Israel to hit from the air is declining, making the likelihood of a ground assault greater. Israeli forces were at the ready yesterday near military vehicles just outside the northern Gaza Strip. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

JERUSALEM - With its punishing air attacks on Gaza about to enter a fifth day, its gunboats gathering near the Gaza port, and its ground forces poised for imminent action, Israel said yesterday that it was considering a 48-hour cease-fire that would also require Hamas to stop its rocket fire.

The idea was in an early stage, the result of a conversation between Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel seeking at least a temporary pause in the fighting that would allow humanitarian relief to be delivered to the besieged coastal strip. Aides to Barak said he was interested in exploring it and would do so with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the rest of the Cabinet today.

"The leading option right now is still a ground invasion but the target of this operation is an improved cease-fire, and if that can come without the invasion, fine," said a close aide to Barak, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not Barak's authorized spokesman. "But, of course, Hamas has to agree, and there has to be a mechanism to make it work."

In Paris, where Kouchner was meeting with his European Union colleagues over the Gaza crisis, he called publicly for a permanent cease-fire. A similar call came from the so-called Quartet focused on the region - the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made phone calls to Israeli and Arab leaders to explore prospects for halting the fighting. They emphasized that any cease-fire should be "durable and sustainable," compelling Hamas to end its rocket attacks, a State Department spokesman said.

"That is different from the cease-fire that existed in the last six months," the spokesman, Gordon Duguid, said, noting that Hamas routinely violated the previous agreement by firing rockets into southern Israel.

The flurry of diplomacy appeared to be mostly byplay in Jerusalem and Gaza, as Israeli officials spoke of a continuing and expanding military operation, and Hamas vowed to step up its resistance. Israeli warplanes attacked tunnels used to smuggle supplies in southern Gaza and destroyed the home of a top militant leader.

Olmert told the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, that the air strikes were the first of several planned phases, according to spokesmen for the officials. It was also clear that the number of targets available from the air was declining, making the likelihood of a ground offensive greater.

In Gaza, Hamas militants issued a taped statement vowing revenge for those killed in the Israeli air raids since Saturday and warning that a ground invasion would prove painful for Israel. Palestinian officials say more than 370 people have been killed - among them, the United Nations says, at least 62 women and children and an unknown number of civilian men. Two sisters, ages 4 and 11, were killed in a strike in the north as concern was growing around the world that the assault was taking a terrible toll on civilians.

"It would be easier to dry the sea of Gaza than to defeat the resistance and uproot Hamas, which is in every house of Gaza," said the statement from the military wing of Hamas. It was played on Hamas's television station, which had been shut down by an Israeli missile but went back on the air by broadcasting from a van. The statement added that if there was a ground invasion, "the children of Gaza will be collecting the body parts of your soldiers and the ruins of tanks."

Hamas continued to fire longer-range rockets at Israel, shooting deep into the city of Ashdod for a second day as well as into Beersheba, a major city in Israel's south, where one landed in an empty kindergarten. There was a report of light injuries and a number of people in shock.

Israeli warplanes, returning repeatedly to the same section of Gaza City overnight, pummeled the main government complex with about 20 missiles, locals said. The complex had been evacuated since the start of the operation Saturday, which also hit nearly all of Hamas's security complexes, its university, and other symbols of its sovereignty and power.

The Nakhala family, which lives next to the compound, was inspecting the damage yesterday morning and recounting the utter fear and panic they all felt as the missiles hit.

"We have no shelters in Gaza," said the father, Osama Nakhala. "Where shall we go? I also have to worry about my mother, who is 80 years old and paralyzed."

His 13-year-old son, Yousef, was with him. When asked his view of the situation, he took an unusual stand for someone in Gaza, where Israel is being cursed by most everyone. "I blame Hamas. It doesn't want to recognize Israel. If they did so there could be peace," he said. "Egypt made a peace treaty with Israel, and nothing is happening to them."

His brother Amjad, 16, disagreed and blamed the Palestinian president in the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, saying that he had sided with Israel.

Gaza City was entirely without electricity for the first time, the result of an air attack that hit the system's infrastructure. Repair workers said they were afraid to work because of the possibility of more raids.

The few open bakeries and grocery stores had lines stretching outside as people tried to stock up. But essentials - like diapers, baby food, bread, potatoes, and fresh vegetables - were in short supply and costlier than normal.

Israel sent in about 100 trucks with emergency supplies of food and medicine, the military reported.

At the Hassouna Bakery near Shifa Hospital, about 100 men and 50 women waited in separate lines to buy bread. Amal Altayan was telling others in the line that she kept her cellphone in her pocket so that if an Israeli missile destroyed her house she would be able to phone for help. The other women mocked her, saying that if a missile hit her house, she would be gone.

Showing familiarity with the kind of knowledge circulating in Gaza these days, Altayan replied: "It depends. If it is an F-16 I will turn into biscuits, but if it is an Apache I may have a chance."

Osama Alaf, 41, said he spent four hours waiting in line to buy bread. "I bought flour until now," he said. "I don't have cooking gas, but I make a fire out of cartons and paper and make bread that way."

Asked whom he blamed, he said, "Israel, which is slaughtering us, and whoever is cooperating with Israel, like Egypt."

Anger at Egypt has grown across the Arab and Muslim worlds because it has declined to open its border with Gaza and is seen as cooperating with Israel.