By Reuters,
Gaza : Palestinians faced even grimmer conditions in the Gaza Strip on Thursday after a U.N. aid agency halted work, saying its staff were at risk from Israeli forces fighting Hamas militants, after two drivers were killed.
Israel also came under sharp Red Cross criticism that it was delaying access to casualties. The reported Palestinian death toll in the 13-day-old conflict topped 700.
Despite the hellish conditions for the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into the coastal strip, international efforts to secure a ceasefire have yet to bear fruit.
But the United States, Britain and France have dropped objections to a binding U.N. resolution on the Gaza crisis and are working on one that calls for an immediate ceasefire, diplomats at the United Nations said.
A Western diplomatic source said the resolution would also include action to stop smuggling of arms to Hamas militants and open Gaza’s border crossings.
Neither Israel nor Hamas has yet agreed to the details of an Egyptian-European ceasefire proposal that also has U.S. support. Hamas says any ceasefire must end the Israeli-led blockade and Israeli cross-border raids.
While international diplomacy grinds on, the hostilities are creating enormous difficulties for relief agencies.
“UNRWA decided to suspend all its operations in the Gaza Strip because of the increasing hostile actions against its premises and personnel,” said Adnan Abu Hasna, a Gaza spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The decision followed the deaths of two Palestinian forklift drivers in an UNRWA convoy hit by an Israeli tank shell. All convoys ferrying humanitarian supplies from at least two key crossing points with Israel were suspended after the incident.
UNRWA provides food and other aid to some 750,000 Gazans, would last. Its work would be suspended “until the Israeli army can guarantee the safety and security of our staff”, agency spokesman Christopher Gunness said in Jerusalem.
Israeli fire has also hit two UNRWA schools, killing more than 45 Palestinians, medical officials in Gaza said.
Figures from the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza showed that 715 people had been killed and at least 3,000 wounded since the Israeli assault began on Dec. 27.
At least 11 Israelis have been killed, eight of them soldiers, including four hit by “friendly” fire.
Israel is bent on halting Hamas rocket fire on its southern towns. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the goal that “quiet will reign supreme” in the area had not been achieved. A decision on further military action “is still ahead of us”, he said.
More than a dozen rockets hit southern Israel on Thursday.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its officials and Palestinian ambulance workers had found four starving children huddled with at least 12 corpses in Gaza in a house 80 metres (yards) from an Israeli military position.
Among the dead in the house, found lying on mattresses, were the children’s mothers, the ICRC said.
In nearby houses in Gaza’s devastated Zeitoun neighbourhood, the team found another three corpses and 15 survivors, including several who were wounded, the Geneva-based agency said.
SHOCKING INCIDENT
It accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the area and said the Israeli army must have been aware of the situation but did not help the wounded, in violation of international law.
“This is a shocking incident,” said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military said it would investigate any formal complaint against its conduct.
A rocket salvo from Lebanon into northern Israel briefly raised fears that Hezbollah fighters were opening a second front to relieve pressure on Gaza. But Israeli cabinet ministers made clear they believed Palestinian groups in Lebanon were to blame.
Police said one rocket tore a hole in the roof of an old people’s home, hurting two people, in the town of Nahariya.
The army, which fought a 34-day war with Shi’ite Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006, responded only with a few artillery rounds. There were no reports of casualties in Lebanon.
The commander of U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon urged “maximum restraint” and the Beirut government criticised the perpetrators for violating the U.N. resolution that halted the 2006 war.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli air strikes and ground attacks killed at least nine civilians and three gunmen, medical officials said. The army said one Israeli soldier was killed. Al Jazeera television reported a second Israeli death but it was not immediately confirmed by the army.
The Palestinian dead included two brothers aged 6 and 13, killed when an Israeli air strike missed a group of Islamic Jihad fighters in Abassan in the southern Gaza Strip. Four other passersby were wounded, medical workers and residents said.
A Ukrainian woman, who had refused to leave Gaza, and her son were killed when a tank shell hit their house, medics said.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian who tried to set fire to a petrol station at a Jewish settlement, police said.
Israel again suspended its assault briefly on Thursday to help Gaza’s inhabitants stock up on much-needed supplies. The army observed a similar three-hour lull on Wednesday.
While pursuing its Gaza war, Israel has said it accepts the “principles” of the European-Egyptian ceasefire proposal. Washington has urged Israel to study the plan.
Officials with Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to recognise Israel and renounce violence, said the group was still considering it.
European governments have offered to back the proposal with an EU border force to stop Hamas, which took over Gaza in 2007, from rearming via tunnels under the border with Egypt.
The plan would also address Palestinian calls for an end to Israel’s economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. Hamas called off a six-month ceasefire late last month, accusing Israel of breaking an agreement to open border crossings to more supplies.