Gaza militants wait for Israel to approve truce

JERUSALEM: Gaza militants said on Tuesday they were awaiting Israeli approval of a Cairo-brokered truce to their seven-day conflict as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in the region to make an urgent push for peace.

The emerging signs of a deal to end seven days of violence that have claimed the lives of 136 Palestinians came as the Israeli army confirmed its first two fatalities from rocket attacks while another missile landed harmlessly just south of Jerusalem.

Optimistic negotiators had initially said that a deal could be announced in Cairo later Tuesday following days of negotiations brokered by an Egyptian government that is keen to make sure the unrest does not spill over to its volatile Sinai territory.

"There will be a joint press conference between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian mediators tonight to announce the truce," an Islamic Jihad source told AFP in Gaza City. A Hamas source separately confirmed the announcement.

But Hamas later said in a statement that Israel had still not responded to the Palestinian proposal as of 22:00 pm (2000 GMT).

"No agreement has been reached until now and it might not happen tonight. All options are open. Our people and the resistance are ready for anything," Hamas leader Izzat al-Rishq tweeted.

Egypt -- its new Islamic government now seen as the Palestinians' main protector -- also initially said the Israeli "aggression" would end within hours.

But Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's spokesman later toned down that optimism by explaining that Cairo "hopes there will be a settlement soon."

Israeli television also cited local diplomatic sources as saying that a truce announcement would probably have to wait at least until Wednesday.

The bloodshed meanwhile showed no signs of abating as the military pressed on with its bombardment of northern Gaza positions from which most of the militants' rockets have been launched.

The Israeli for their part lost two soldiers to rocket attacks that continued unabated for the seventh day. The army said nearly 800 rockets have hit Israeli territory since the worst outbreak of Gaza violence in four years broke out last Wednesday.

The incessant Israeli bombing killed another 26 Palestinians on Tuesday in attacks that also claimed the lives of two cameramen of the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV station.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said flatly on Tuesday that it was time for Hamas -- the Islamist movement which rules Gaza -- to choose between peace and further bloodshed.

"Our hand is outstretched in peace to those of our neighbours who want to make peace with us," Israel's right-wing premier said in a statement. "And the other hand is firmly grasping the sword of David."

A senior Hamas official told AFP in Cairo that a key sticking point was whether Israel would begin easing its six-year-old blockade of Gaza coinciding with the truce or at a later date.

"A compromise solution is for there to be agreement on lifting the siege, and that it would be implemented later at a specified time," he said.

Netanyahu and his key ministers decided in a closed-door meeting late Monday to place "a temporary hold on a ground incursion to give diplomacy a chance to succeed," a senior Israeli official told AFP.

The move came as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Netanyahu and again urged all parties to end fire "immediately".

The flurry of diplomatic activity has also seen US Secretary of State Clinton cut short an Asia tour to head to Israel where she arrived late Tuesday for talks with Netanyahu.

The chief US diplomat was due to travel to the West Bank capital Ramallah on Wednesday and also visit Cairo for an expected meeting with Morsi -- seen as one of the most influential negotiators in the current conflict.

Hamas is understood to be seeking guarantees that Israel will stop its targeted killings and end its blockade on the tiny coastal stretch of land.

Israel for its part is believed to be looking for a 24- to 48-hour truce as a buffer to work out a more permanent arrangement.

An Israeli government source said that negotiations from all sides were discussing a truce proposal "constantly" but that no "estimated time of arrival" for a truce could yet be made.

- AFP/fa

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Cabinet to discuss amendment to Indo-Bangla boundary pact

NEW DELHI: A Constitutional Amendment Bill for implementing the India-Bangladesh boundary agreement signed last year is expected to come up before the Union Cabinet on Thursday. The additional protocols for the Land Boundary Agreement 1974, signed during PM Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka in September, 2011, require a Constitutional amendment for ratification as these involve exchange of land — 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves on Indian soil.

Bangladesh has already ratified the pact. It has taken more than a year for the government to move for the amendment despite repeated reminders from Dhaka. While Indian enclaves in Bangladesh are spread over 17,149 acres, Bangladesh enclaves in India are located in 7,110 acres.

The Bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament in the upcoming winter session after clearance from the Cabinet. With no development yet over the Teesta water-sharing issue, the government will hope that the introduction of the Bill in Parliament will help soothe Dhaka's frayed tempers.

With complete unanimity in Bangladesh about the need for the agreement, which has great strategic significance for India too, the government has been touting it as a major foreign policy achievement. However, it needs to take the BJP into confidence to ensure the amendment is passed by two-thirds of members "present and voting". The government has been assuring Bangladesh all this while that is working to create a political consensus in the country over the agreement. While West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee had initially given her consent for the pact, she is later said to have again expressed reservations putting the government on the back foot.

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason that making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

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Israeli Airstrike Kills Top Islamic Jihad Commander

An Israeli strike on a Gaza City high-rise today has killed one of the top militant leaders of Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian militant group said.

The second strike in two days on the downtown Gaza City building that houses the Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, has killed Ramez Harb, who is a leading figure in Al Quds Brigades militant wing, according to a text message Islamic Jihad sent to reporters.

Witnesses told the AP that the Israeli airstrike, part of a widening effort to suppress Hamas rocket fire into Israel, struck the building Monday afternoon, and ambulances quickly rushed to the scene. Paramedics told the AP that one person was killed and several wounded.

It is also the second high profile commander taken out in the Israeli offensive, which began six days ago with a missile strike that killed Ahmed Jibari, Hamas' top military commander.

Today mourners buried the 11 victims of an Israeli air strike on Sunday, the single deadliest incident since the escalation between Hamas and Israel began Wednesday. Among the dead were nine members of the Daloo family, killed when an Israeli warplane targeted their home in Gaza City while trying to kill a Hamas rocket maker, whose fate is unknown.

Palestinian deaths climbed to 96 Monday when four more, including two children, were killed in a strike on a sports stadium the Israel Defense Forces said was being used to launch rockets. Gaza health officials said half of those killed were children, women or elderly men.

With the death toll rising, Egypt accelerated efforts to broker a cease-fire, but so far the two sides are far apart. Egypt is being supported by Qatar and Turkey in its peacemaking mission and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to arrive at the talks later today.

President Obama called Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today to discuss ways to reduce tensions and bring the fighting to a halt.

Israel carried out 80 air strikes this morning, down from previous morning totals. There were 75 militant rocket launches, the Israeli military said, also a relatively low tally. The Israel Defense Forces said that since Wednesday, around 1,100 strikes had been carried out in Gaza while militants have launched about 1,000 rockets towards Israel.

Three Israeli civilians died from militant rocket fire in one attack Thursday and dozens have been wounded.

Sunday proved to be one the deadliest days of what Israel has called "Operation Pillar of Defense" with at least 23 Palestinians reported killed. Of those, at least 14 were women and children, according to a Gaza health official. The Israel Defense Forces told ABC News it was targeting Hamas rocket maker Yehiya Bia, who lives near the Daloo family in a densely populated Gaza neighborhood and has not been accounted for.

Israel shifted its tactics this weekend from striking rocket arsenals and firing positions to targeting the homes of senior Hamas commanders and the offices of Hamas politicians in Gaza. Doing so brought the violence into Gaza's most densely populated areas.

Israel hit two high-rise buildings Sunday that house the offices of Hamas and international media outlets, injuring at least six journalists.

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Israel says prefers diplomacy but ready to invade Gaza

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday and said that while it was prepared to step up its offensive by sending in troops, it preferred a diplomatic solution that would end Palestinian rocket fire.

Mediator Egypt said a deal for a truce to end the fighting could be close. The leader of Hamas said it was up to Israel to end the new conflict it had started. Israel says its strikes are to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, touring the region in hopes of helping broker a peace arrived in Cairo, where he met Egypt's foreign minister in preparation for talks with the new, Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, on Tuesday. He also plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Israeli attacks on the sixth day of fighting raised the number of Palestinian dead to 101, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said, listing 24 children among them. Hospital officials in Gaza said more than half of those killed were non-combatants. Three Israeli civilians died on Thursday in a rocket strike.

Militants in the Gaza Strip fired 110 rockets at southern Israel on Monday, causing no casualties, police said.

For the second straight day, Israeli missiles blasted a tower block in the city of Gaza housing international media. Two people were killed there, one of them an Islamic Jihad militant.

Khaled Meshaal, exiled leader of Hamas, said a truce was possible but the Islamist group, in charge of the Gaza Strip since 2007, would not accept Israeli demands and wanted Israel to halt its strikes first and lift its blockade of the enclave.

"Whoever started the war must end it," he told a news conference in Cairo, adding that Netanyahu, who faces an election in January, had asked for a truce, an assertion a senior Israeli official described as untrue.

Meshaal said Netanyahu feared the domestic consequences of a "land war" of the kind Israel launched four years ago: "He can do it, but he knows that it will not be a picnic and that it could be his political death and cost him the elections."

For Israel, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon has said that "if there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Yaalon also said Israel wanted an end to Gaza guerrilla activity in the neighboring Egyptian Sinai peninsula.

Although 84 percent of Israelis supported the current Gaza assault, according to a poll by Israel's Haaretz newspaper, only 30 percent wanted an invasion, while 19 percent wanted their government to work on securing a truce soon.

DIPLOMACY "PREFERRED"

"Israel is prepared and has taken steps, and is ready for a ground incursion which will deal severely with the Hamas military machine," a senior official close to Netanyahu told Reuters.

"We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation would no longer be required. If diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces," he added.

Egypt, where Mursi has his roots in the Muslim Brotherhood seen as mentors to Hamas, is acting as a mediator in the biggest test yet of Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.

"I think we are close, but the nature of this kind of negotiation, (means) it is very difficult to predict," Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, who visited Gaza on Friday in a show of support for its people, said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

Egypt has been hosting leaders of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction.

Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had also been to Cairo for truce talks. A spokesman for Netanyahu's government declined comment on the matter.

Egypt's foreign minister, who met U.N. chief Ban on Monday, is expected to visit Gaza on Tuesday with a delegation of Arab ministers.

THOUSANDS MOURN FAMILY

Thousands turned out on Gaza's streets to mourn four children and five women, among 11 people killed in an Israeli strike that flattened a three-storey home the previous day.

The bodies were wrapped in Palestinian and Hamas flags. Echoes of explosions mixed with cries of grief and defiant chants of "God is greatest".

The deaths of the 11 in an air strike drew more international calls for an end to six days of hostilities and could test Western support for an offensive Israel billed as self-defense after years of cross-border rocket attacks.

Israel said it was investigating its air strike that brought the home crashing down on the al-Dalu family, where the dead spanned four generations. Some Israeli newspapers said the wrong house may have been mistakenly targeted.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of the coastal enclave, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border and military convoys moved on roads in the area.

Israel has also authorized the call-up of 75,000 military reservists, so far mobilizing around half that number.

The Gaza fighting adds to worries of world powers watching an already combustible region, where several Arab autocrats have been toppled in popular revolts for the past two years and a civil war in Syria threatens to spread beyond its borders.

In the absence of any prospect of permanent peace between Israel and Islamist factions such as Hamas, mediated deals for each to hold fire unilaterally have been the only formula for stemming bloodshed in the past.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has hit Israeli border towns for years.

Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.

Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006. A year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamist group seized Gaza in a brief civil war with Abbas's forces.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Dan Williams and Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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We have the numbers in Lok Sabha: Congress

NEW DELHI: Undeterred by the Trinamool Congress's plan to bring a no-trust motion in Parliament against the government's decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail, Congress on Monday exuded confidence of having the numbers if the opposition indeed went ahead with the move.

"We are fully confident of numbers and will prove majority on the floor of Lok Sabha. We have more than 272," AICC spokesman Sandeep Dikshit said.

Maintaining that policy issues came under the executive's domain, Congress argued that discussion on FDI in retail in Parliament could not be allowed under a rule that entailed voting. "Normally, voting is done on issues which are the prerogative of legislature. But we will leave it for the Speaker to decide," Dikshit said.

The spokesman said 54 MPs were required to sign any proposal to bring a no-confidence motion, hinting that Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee with 19 members in Lok Sabha may not find support to bring the motion.

Congress is confident of dealing with the situation with party sources saying BJP and Left parties were not very keen on bring in or supporting a no-confidence motion on FDI in retail.

The party also clarified that the government had no plan to seek a confidence vote on the FDI measure as it had done during UPA-1 on India-US nuclear deal in 2008 when Left parties withdrew support from it.

While Dikshit refrained from attacking Banerjee, her move was ridiculed by information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari who said that never in the history of Parliament had a party with 19 members pushed for a no-trust motion.

"This is a peculiar situation that in the history of Parliament, a 19-member party is talking of a no-confidence motion," he said.

The minister rued that Banerjee was reaching out for support to even those opposition parties "which she has fought for the last 30 years". Tewari asked her to introspect as she was part of the UPA government just three months ago.

The minister asked Banerjee to seriously reconsider her decision, reminding her that a time comes in every politician's life when they have to graduate from being an activist to an administrator. "A time comes when you have to evolve from a street fighter to a statesperson. You have to evolve from an agitator to an administrator. With due respect, I hope the chief minister will seriously introspect her decision," he said.

Tewari wondered if Mamata had the right to "veto" the policy in the case of states such as Haryana, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, which wanted to implement it.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Officials: Israeli Strike Kills 11 Civilians in Gaza

An Israeli missile flattened a two-story house in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, mostly women and children, Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel expanded a military offensive to target homes of wanted militants.

The attack, which Israel said targeted a militant, was the single deadliest incident of the five-day-old Israeli operation and hiked a toll Sunday that was already the highest number of civilians killed in one day, according to Gaza medics. The bloodshed is likely to raise international pressure for a cease-fire, with Egypt taking the leading role in mediating between Israel and Hamas.

President Barack Obama said he had been in touch with the leaders of Israel, Egypt, and Turkey in an effort to halt the fighting. "We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he said.

Obama cautioned against a potential Israeli ground invasion into Gaza, warning it could only deepen its death toll. At the same time, he blamed Palestinian militants for starting the round of fighting by raining rockets onto Israel, and he defended Israel's right to defend itself.

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory," Obama said in Thailand at the start of a three-nation tour in Asia.

Is Ceasefire Possible for Israel and Hamas? Watch Video

An Israeli envoy arrived in Cairo on Sunday and held talks with Egyptian officials on a ceasefire, according to Egyptian security officials and Nabil Shaath, a top aide of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in the Egyptian capital.

But Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers remain far apart on any terms for a halt in the bloodshed, which has killed 70 Palestinians — including 36 civilians, according to Gaza health officials — and three Israeli civilians.

Hamas is linking a truce deal to a complete lifting of the border blockade on Gaza imposed since Islamists seized the territory by force. Hamas also seeks Israeli guarantees to halt targeted killings of its leaders and military commanders. Israeli officials reject such demands. They say they are not interested in a "timeout," and want firm guarantees that militant rocket fire into Israel will finally end. Past ceasefires have been short lived.

As the offensive moved forward, Israel found itself at a crossroads — on the cusp of launching a ground offensive into Gaza to strike an even tougher blow against Hamas, or pursuing Egyptian-led truce efforts.

"The Israeli military is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

At the same time, Gaza militants continued their barrage of rocket fire at Israel, firing more than 100, including two at Tel Aviv. More than 10 Israelis were injured by shrapnel, two moderately, according to police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system shot down at least 30 rockets, including the ones aimed at Tel Aviv.

Israel's announcement Sunday that it was widening its campaign to target homes of militants appeared to mark a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel launched the offensive Wednesday in a bid to end months of intensifying rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The day's deadliest strike hit the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.

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Israeli air strike kills 11 civilians in Gaza: Hamas

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday, medical officials said, in an apparent attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount in response to the deadliest single incident in five days of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Israel gave off signs of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-run enclave as the next stage in its offensive, billed as a bid to stop Palestinian rocket fire into the Jewish state. It also spelt out its conditions for a truce.

U.S. President Barack Obama said that while Israel had a right to defend itself against the salvoes, it would be "preferable" to avoid a military thrust into the Gaza Strip, a narrow, densely populated coastal territory. Such an assault would risk high casualties and an international outcry.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said 11 people, all of them civilians, were killed when an Israeli missile flattened the home of the Dalu family. Medics said four women and four children were among the dead.

Israel's chief military spokesman said Yihia Abayah, a senior commander of rocket operations in the Gaza Strip, had been the target.

The spokesman, Yoav Mordechai, told Israel's Channel 2 television he did not know whether Abayah was killed, "but the outcome was that there were civilian casualties". He made no direct mention of the destroyed dwelling.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier that he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in the military showdown with Hamas.

"The massacre of the Dalu family will not pass without punishment," Hamas's armed wing said in a statement.

In other air raids on Sunday, two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said. Eight journalists were wounded and facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News were damaged.

An employee of the Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, local medics said.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity", and that journalists in the building had effectively been used as human shields by Gaza's rulers.

For their part, Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day with one attack in the morning and another after nightfall.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile shield shot down all three rockets, but falling debris from the daytime interception hit a car, which caught fire. Its driver was not hurt.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border. Military convoys moved on roads in the area newly closed to civilian traffic.

Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organisations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

Gaza health officials said 69 Palestinians - about half of them women and children - have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began, with hundreds wounded.

The Israeli military said 544 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since Wednesday, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Some 302 were intercepted and 99 failed to reach Israel and landed inside the Gaza Strip, it added.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force the Islamist Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedevilled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the impoverished enclave, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

OBAMA CAUTIONS AGAINST GROUND CAMPAIGN

At a news conference during a visit to the Thai capital Bangkok, Obama said Israel has "every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory".

He added: "If this can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza that is preferable. That's not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it's also preferable for Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded," he said.

Obama said he had been in regular contact with Egyptian and Turkish leaders - to secure their mediation in bringing about a halt to rocket barrages by Hamas and other Islamist militants.

"We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he added.

Israeli officials declined to confirm or deny reports that an Israeli negotiator had flown to Cairo to discuss a ceasefire.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees".

Silvan Shalom, one of Netanyahu's deputies, said: "There are contacts, but they are currently far from being concluded."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in Egypt on Monday for talks with Mursi, the foreign ministry in Cairo said. U.N. diplomats earlier said Ban was expected in Israel and Egypt this week to push for an end to the fighting.

Listing Israel's terms for ceasing fire, Moshe Yaalon, another deputy to the prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Israel's operation has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defence, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

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Motor Racing: Hamilton wins USA GP

AUSTIN, Texas: McLaren's Lewis Hamilton won the United States Grand Prix here on Sunday ahead of 2012 title rivals Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.

Vettel, who started from pole but was overtaken by Hamilton on lap 42, now takes a 13-point lead over Alonso to the season-closing Brazilian Grand Prix next Sunday.

The 25-year-old German, who leads the drivers standings with 273 points from Alonso on 260, is seeking to become Formula One's youngest ever triple world champion at Interlagos.

Vettel's second place, despite his teammate Mark Webber being forced to retire, was sufficient to supply Red Bull with the 2012 constructors' title.

- AFP/fa

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