Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas suspended peace negotiations with Israel on Sunday,
demanding it end a Gaza offensive that has killed more than 100
Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Israel said it was acting in self-defence in the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to curb constant cross-border rocket
attacks by militants and threatened to intensify its ground and
air campaign despite allegations it was using excessive force.
Abbas had ordered "the suspension of negotiations ... until
(Israeli) aggression is stopped", a senior aide to the
Palestinian leader said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
But he stopped short of declaring dead the U.S.-brokered
statehood talks opposed by Hamas Islamists who seized control of
the Gaza Strip from his Fatah movement in June.
Arye Mekel, spokesman for Israel's chief negotiator, Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni, said Abbas's decision was a mistake and
expressed hope the talks would resume "in the very near future".
A 21-month-old Palestinian girl and three militants died in
the latest fighting in the Gaza Strip, raising the Palestinian
death toll in five days of bloodshed to more than 100, medical
officials said.
Anti-Israeli demonstrations erupted in the occupied West
Bank, where Israeli forces confronting stone-throwers near the
town of Hebron shot dead a 14-year-old boy wearing a Hamas
headband, witnesses said.
Nine rockets slammed into southern Israel, wounding four
people, Israeli ambulance workers said.
"Israel has no intention of stopping the fight against the
terrorist organisations even for a minute," Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert told his cabinet, facing the new challenge of long-range
rockets hitting the major southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Abbas suspended peace negotiations with Israel on Sunday,
demanding it end a Gaza offensive that has killed more than 100
Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Israel said it was acting in self-defence in the
Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to curb constant cross-border rocket
attacks by militants and threatened to intensify its ground and
air campaign despite allegations it was using excessive force.
Abbas had ordered "the suspension of negotiations ... until
(Israeli) aggression is stopped", a senior aide to the
Palestinian leader said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
But he stopped short of declaring dead the U.S.-brokered
statehood talks opposed by Hamas Islamists who seized control of
the Gaza Strip from his Fatah movement in June.
Arye Mekel, spokesman for Israel's chief negotiator, Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni, said Abbas's decision was a mistake and
expressed hope the talks would resume "in the very near future".
A 21-month-old Palestinian girl and three militants died in
the latest fighting in the Gaza Strip, raising the Palestinian
death toll in five days of bloodshed to more than 100, medical
officials said.
Anti-Israeli demonstrations erupted in the occupied West
Bank, where Israeli forces confronting stone-throwers near the
town of Hebron shot dead a 14-year-old boy wearing a Hamas
headband, witnesses said.
Nine rockets slammed into southern Israel, wounding four
people, Israeli ambulance workers said.
"Israel has no intention of stopping the fight against the
terrorist organisations even for a minute," Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert told his cabinet, facing the new challenge of long-range
rockets hitting the major southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.