Israel nears ground operation amid stepped-up diplomacy others available (2nd Roundup)

By Ofira Koopmans and Jeff Abramowitz Jan 1, 2009, 20:58 GMT

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israel edged closer Thursday toward a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, but also intensified contacts with foreign leaders seeking a diplomatic solution to the Gaza crisis.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni travelled to Paris to discuss 'different ideas about what can be done on the diplomatic level' with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said Yigal Palmor, a senior advisor to Livni.

Palmor would not confirm that one idea being raised was the deployment of international monitors to ensure compliance with any new truce in the Gaza Strip.

He said Israel was 'very seriously' examining a number of proposals 'from various parties who want to contribute.' It was demanding 'clear guarantees and a mechanism' that would restore calm to residents of southern Israeli towns and cities hit by Palestinian rockets from Gaza.

Livni said Israel will continue the offensive until it reaches a point where 'the operation exhausts itself' and militants no longer fire rockets at the Jewish state.

'It's not a case of a timetable, but a case of targets, and each day we have to do a new situation assessment,' she told Israel's Channel 2 news from the French capital.

While its ground troops were ready along the Gaza border, awaiting orders for operations to start, Israel kept up its relentless air raids on the sixth day of its offensive against Hamas.

The Israel Air Force destroyed the house of a senior Hamas leader in northern Gaza, Nazar Rayan, killing him, his wife and his eight children, hospital officials said.

Rayan, in his 50s, was the most senior leader of the Islamist Hamas killed so far in the Israeli offensive. Most top leaders of the movement ruling Gaza have gone into hiding.

He was close to Hamas' armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and led it and other Palestinian fighters in opposition to several Israeli forays into the Gaza Strip in the past.

An Israeli military spokeswoman in Tel Aviv confirmed Rayan had been the target of the airstrike, saying he had been involved in several attacks against Israeli civilians, including a March 2004 double suicide bombing in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.

One of the more extremist leaders within Hamas, he had been advocating a renewal of suicide bombings in Israel, she said.

Later Thursday Israel also bombed the house of Nabil Amrin, a senior commander in the Hamas military wing. The Israeli military said his house contained a large amount of weapons, which set off a secondary explosion.

It was unclear if Amrin was at home when his house was hit.

According to the al-Jazeera broadcaster, at least 420 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, and around 2,000 injured. At least one quarter of the Palestinian dead were civilians, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said Wednesday.

Four Israelis - three civilians and a soldier - have also been killed, and dozens more injured by close to 500 rockets and mortars the Gaza militants have launched since the start of the Israeli attacks.

Other targets hit in the 50 or so raids the Israelis launched Thursday were the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza City, the Hamas-run Justice Ministry and more tunnels running under the Gaza-Egyptian border.

Hamas kept up its attacks with a barrage of around 50 rockets striking southern Israeli towns and cities, including Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beersheba.

One scored a direct hit on an eight-storey residential building in Ashdod, penetrating the roof and two floors, firefighters said. They said they quickly evacuated the building for fear part of it might collapse, but that no one was hurt.

A senior Israeli military official told Israel Radio the Israeli ground operation would involve many soldiers but be relatively limited in scope.

Israel Defence Forces' (IDF) official spokesman, Brigadier General Avi Benyahu, stressed its aim would not be to reconquer the Gaza Strip, nor to topple the Hamas regime. Israel's offensive had already delivered a 'harsh blow' to Hamas' rocket arsenal and launching sites, but was not as much acting against the rockets, as 'against the motivation of Hamas to fire them,' he told Israel Army radio, warning the operation would 'take time.'

Amid the feverish diplomatic efforts, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to New York this week, heading a high-level Arab delegation with the aim of getting the UN Security Council to call a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday night, the head of Hamas' government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya, called for an unconditional end to the Israeli offensive as the first step toward ending the violence.

Haniya, speaking on the pro-Hamas al-Aqsa television from his hiding place, also demanded an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the reopening of crossings into the enclave, and talks on reconciling the bitter rift between Hamas and Abbas' secular Fatah faction.

Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in Beersheba, vowed to continue to hit Hamas with an 'iron fist,' saying Israel was 'unable to live with' the daily rocket and mortar attacks at its south.

His spokesman Mark Regev said Israel was, in the mean time, 'engaging with friends abroad' on the 'common goal' of ending rocket attacks on its southern region.