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Israel rebuffs truce, mobilises troops

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-01 11:40

GAZA - Israel rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after Hamas rockets hit an Israeli town and Palestinians endured more air strikes on the last day of 2008.

Smoke rises after an Israel air strike in Gaza December 31, 2008. [Agencies]

Israel also stepped up preparations for a possible ground offensive into the densely-populated coastal enclave.

Israeli aircraft carried out more than 10 air raids in reduced operations in rainy weather that allowed many Gaza residents to venture out to shop for food for the first time since the start of the five-day-old offensive.

The poor weather -- "a truce imposed by God" as one Palestinian put it -- could delay any push by Israeli tanks into Gaza but forecasters predicted several days of clear skies starting late on Thursday.

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Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said the Israeli attacks must stop before any truce proposals could be considered. Israel must also lift its economic blockade of Gaza and open border crossings, he said in a televised speech to Palestinians.

"After that it will be possible to talk on all issues without any exception," Haniyeh said.

U.S. President George W. Bush spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert but did not discuss a timetable for halting Israeli strikes, the White House said. Bush put the onus on Hamas to stop firing rockets as a first step to a truce.

Foreign pressure has grown on both sides to end hostilities, but Israel brushed aside as "unrealistic" a French proposal for a 48-hour truce that would allow in more humanitarian aid for Gaza's 1.5 million residents.

"If conditions will ripen and we think there will be a diplomatic solution that will ensure a better security reality in the south, we will consider it. But at the moment, it's not there," an aide quoted Olmert as saying.

Palestinians take part in a candlelight rally outside the Church of the Nativity in the West bank town of Bethlehem, against the Israeli offensive in Gaza December 31, 2008. [Agencies]

"We didn't start this operation just to end it with rocket fire continuing as it did before it began," Olmert told his security cabinet, according to the aide.

With Palestinians increasingly enraged over the offensive, President Mahmoud Abbas called for the fighting to be stopped "immediately and without any conditions" and said Israel was fully responsible for the carnage. Abbas will ask the U.N. Security Council to act, aides said.

Diplomats said the deadliest conflict in the Gaza Strip in four decades could get even bloodier after four days of air strikes that have killed at least 396 Palestinians, at least a quarter of whom, U.N. figures showed, were civilians.

Along the fortified border fence, Israeli tank crews prepared for battle while Islamist militants, hiding as little as a few hundred yards (metres) away, laid land mines and other booby traps should a ground war break out.

Inside Gaza, many residents stepped outside their homes to stock up on supplies, taking advantage of a lull in Israeli air strikes that have flattened Hamas government buildings.

"What we need most is sugar, rice and flour and there is nothing of that in the stores," said Abu Hani, trying to buy food for his family of five.

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