Israel may halt Gaza war, ignore Hamas demands

Israel may halt its Gaza war unilaterally to deprive Hamas of any political gains from an Egyptian-brokered truce deal, political sources said yesterday.

Amid feverish diplomacy in Cairo and Washington, Israel said its offensive could be "in the final act", but again bombarded the Gaza Strip, where more than 1,150 Palestinians have been killed and 5,000 wounded in three weeks of fighting.

Israeli officials said yesterday Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would convene his Security Cabinet today to decide whether to call a unilateral ceasefire, adding that Egypt had concluded that talks with Hamas were not progressing.

Egyptian officials were not available for comment.

Israel will not deal directly with the Islamist movement, which is also shunned by the West for its refusal to recognise the Jewish state, renounce violence and accept past peace deals.

Hamas' exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said earlier Israel's ceasefire terms were unacceptable and that Hamas, demanding an end to a punitive Israeli blockade of Gaza, would fight on.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, asked if her country would end fighting unilaterally, told Channel 10 Television: "The Security Cabinet will convene to make the decision."

Meshaal urged Arab leaders meeting in Qatar to sever ties with Israel, a call echoed by Syria and Iran. Mauritania and Qatar later froze their limited ties with the Jewish state.

The inauguration of new US President Barack Obama on Tuesday is seen by some as a deadline for Israel to bow to mounting international pressure and call off its attacks.

"Hopefully we're in the final act," Mr Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said of a conflict in which Israel has used devastating firepower to try to deter militants from shooting rockets at it from the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million people.

Gazans savoured some respite a day after fierce combat that some had seen as a final Israeli push before a ceasefire.

But Israeli strikes intensified later, killing 30 Gazans. Among them were fighters, including an Islamic Jihad commander in the southern town of Khan Younis, and civilians.

Israeli tank fire hit the home of a Hamas militant, killing his wife and five children, in the central Gaza Strip, medical officials said. The militant was not there at the time. At least 15 rockets and mortar rounds landed in Israel from Gaza, the army said, wounding five civilians. Such attacks have dwindled during the war, which Israel launched on December 27 with the declared aim of crippling Hamas' rocket-firing capacity.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in the campaign.

Ms Livni, vying to replace Mr Olmert as Prime Minister in an election on February 10, has privately advocated a unilateral halt to the Gaza war.

That would avoid any need for a binding, internationally recognised truce and confer no backdoor legitimacy on Hamas.