Ban Ki-moon due in Cairo to press Hamas to accept one-year ceasefire as rifts among Israel's leadership deepen
The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza conflict climbed to more than 1,000 today after nearly three weeks of intensive Israeli bombing and ground fighting.
So far 1,010 Palestinians have been killed, among them 315 children and 95 women, Dr Moawiya Hassanein, head of Gaza's medical emergency services, told the Guardian. The number of injured after 19 days of fighting stood at 4,700, he said.
With Israeli troops fighting on the outskirts of Gaza City after another night of heavy bombing and shelling, the new death toll came as the secretary-general of the UN was in Cairo for urgent talks to end the conflict.
Ban Ki-moon said he wanted "an immediate end to violence in Gaza, and then to the Israeli military offensive and a halt to rocket attacks by Hamas".
"It is intolerable that civilians bear the brunt of this conflict," he said, adding that the "negotiations need to be intensified to provide arrangements and guarantees in order to sustain an endurable cease-fire and calm."
His demand followed a meeting with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, The UN chief is also scheduled to travel to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Kuwait, although not Gaza itself.
There was heavy fighting in northern Gaza and around the edges of Gaza City, from where Israeli troops have mounted raids to within a mile of the city centre. Early today, the old Gaza city hall, a former court building, was destroyed in an air strike which damaged many shops in the nearby market.
Israel's military said it hit 60 sites overnight, including the police headquarters in Gaza City that had been hit on the first day of the operation, as well as rocket launching sites, weapons stores and 35 smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt. Six Israeli soldiers were injured.
Three rockets fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel in the second such attack since Israeli forces launched their Gaza offensive. Police said the rockets landed in open areas and there were no reports of damage or injuries. People in northern Israel were advised to head to bomb shelters. Reports from Lebanon said five rockets were fired but that two fell short. Israel's military responded with artillery fire towards the firing sites.
Four rockets were fired on northern Israel last Thursday. Hezbollah denied responsibility and speculation focused on small Palestinian groups in Lebanon.
Rifts among Israel's leaders over the conflict are appearing to deepen. The defence minister, Ehud Barak, is pressing for a one-week halt to the fighting to allow in humanitarian aid, according to a report today in the Ha'aretz newspaper. Barak believes the 19-day offensive has bolstered Israel's deterrent power and believes continuing the fight would bring "only operational complications and casualties", the paper said.
"Barak is proposing the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] cease its fire, hold its positions and keep the reservists under arms, and thus negotiate with Egypt and the United States on an arrangement that would prevent arms smuggling into the strip," it said.
Barak fears that when Barack Obama assumes the US presidency on Tuesday he will demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire. Another risk was a tougher UN security council resolution – a resolution last week calling for a ceasefire was ignored as "unworkable" by Israel.
Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, favours ending the conflict, according to Israeli reports, although she does not want any agreement with Hamas.
However, the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, has made clear he would rather escalate the conflict in the hope of more seriously damaging Hamas.
Israel's military believes only a few hundred Hamas militia have been killed and that the movement still has many rockets ready to launch into southern Israel. Of the 200 Palestinians detained by Israeli troops, fewer than 30 were found to have any link with militant groups in Gaza, a report said.
Despite nearly three weeks of intense Israeli bombing, Hamas fired 18 rockets into Israel on Tuesday – although that is less than a third of the daily rockets at the start of the offensive.
As well as the Palestinian death toll, 13 Israelis have been killed, including three civilians. At least 35,000 Palestinians are holed up in UN schools operating as emergency shelters. Tens of thousands more are staying with relatives or friends.
Around two-thirds of the territory's 1.5m people have no electricity; the rest have only an intermittent supply, according to the UN said.