Israel might halt its Gaza war unilaterally to deprive Hamas of any political gains from an Egyptian-brokered truce deal, political sources said on Friday. 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 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would convene his security cabinet on Saturday night to decide whether to call a unilateral cease-fire, 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's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said earlier Israel's cease-fire 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.
"FINAL ACT": "Hopefully we're in the final act," 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 cease-fire. 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's rocket-firing capacity. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in the campaign.
Livni, vying to replace 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. "I have said the end doesn't have to be in agreement with Hamas but rather in arrangements against Hamas," Livni said.
She was speaking from Washington after signing a security pact with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed at cutting off Hamas weapons supplies from air, land or sea. They agreed to share more information, know-how and various US "assets" to block arms shipments bound for Gaza from Iran and elsewhere, apparently reinforcing existing arrangements. Preventing Hamas from rearming is Israel's main condition for any halt to its onslaught.
"DURABLE CEASEFIRE" "Together the steps that we and other members of the international community can take will contribute to a durable cease-fire," Rice said, without saying when a truce might start. Western officials said Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak might sign a separate pact in Cairo as early as Sunday, aimed at bolstering a truce.
The officials, who asked not to be named, said the agreement might include security arrangements for Gaza's borders. Egypt and Israel want Abbas's forces to reassert control at crossings.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, visiting the region, may attend any ceremony in Cairo, the Western officials said. Hamas and diplomatic sources said on Thursday that Hamas had offered a one-year, renewable truce on condition that all Israeli forces withdrew within five to seven days and that all the border crossings with Israel and Egypt would be opened. Hamas negotiators are due to meet the Egyptians on Saturday to discuss the Israeli response, delivered by senior Israeli official Amos Gilad, who held talks in Cairo on Friday.