Fighting rages on in Gaza as diplomatic efforts continue

Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships battled Hamas militants in all major Gaza towns as the country continued to reject appeals to halt the war which entered the 11th day and has so far killed at least 580 Palestinians.
 
The Israelis widened their offensive arc when its tanks rolled into the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip early this morning.
 
In Tuesday's fighting at least 22 people including four Israeli soldiers were killed and 50 others injured. All the four Israeli soldiers, all from elite Golan Brigade were killed in a "friendly fire" when a tank, deployed as part of operation Cast Lead, accidentally fired a live round at their positions in an abandoned building in the Jabalya refugee camp.
 
So far a total of five Israeli soldiers have been killed in the conflict and a military spokesman in Tel Aviv said that among the Palestinian killed included 130 armed Hamas fighters.
 
But despite launching air, ground and naval assault, Israelis are yet to tame the Hamas which continued to fire rockets into Israel. One of the Hamas rockets launched on Tuesday struck as deep as 45 kilometres into Israel lightly wounding a baby. At least five rockets were fired today.
 
Israeli airstrikes hit three separate schools run by the United Nations and later UN and Palestinian officials said on Tuesday that 10 people were killed.
 
Meanwhile according to reports some Hamas officials had flown to Cairo to look at a Egyptian sponsored cease-fire proposal.
 
Israeli troops seized control of high rise buildings, attacked smuggling tunnels and searched mosques and other places in a desperate hunt for the Hamas rocket batteries.
 
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts also gained speed to work out a ceasefire between the two sides with French president on a three day whirlwind tour of the region, a European delegation visiting the area, Hamas delegation visiting Egypt and Arab governments pressing the UN on it.
 
Defence analysts here have been arguing that both the sides would prefer a diplomatic exit from the current situation but would try to gain an upper hand before the ceasefire.
 
Prime minister Ehud Olmert asked French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday to prevent the UN Security Council from bringing to the floor a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, telling the French leader that Israel was forced into the operation out of a desire to defend the lives of its southern citizens.
 
"The goal of the operation is not to destroy the Hamas leadership, even though we are able to do this, as well," Olmert told Sarkozy.
 
"We defined from the very beginning a limited goal - to change the security situation in the South and to free thousands of citizens from the threat of terror."
 
"In view of the diplomatic developments, it would be unwise to pass a resolution on the matter, since past experience has proven that Israel cannot afford restricting its freedom to act against terrorism - today Hamas, tomorrow Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaida," he stressed.
 
"Sometimes the need to find a compromise in the UN comes at Israel's expense," Olmert added saying Jerusalem has "experience in this matter."
 
He also expressed his opposition to a ceasefire agreement similar to the one which was accepted in June, implying that the first arrangement may have created a more perilous situation for Israel.
 
"I am a man of compromise. I have conducted two negotiations in an effort to bring about compromise. However, on one thing I cannot compromise, and that is the security of Israeli citizens," Olmert told the French president.
 
The Israeli premier echoed the US president George W Bush's position according to which the end result of the Gaza operation must be that Hamas "not only stops firing, but also lose its ability to fire in the future."
 
The UN Security Council is set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip, and France is currently acting as its president.