Israel defies UN call for truce, bombs Gaza

Smoke from Israeli strikes billows from the Gaza Strip yesterday as seen from Gaza City. Israel battered Gaza with bombs and shells.Photo: AFPAfp, Gaza City

A defiant Israel pounded Gaza with bombs and shells Friday, vowing to pursue its war on Hamas despite a truce order from the UN Security Council, amid warnings the territory was running out of food.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not bow to "outside influence" as its aircraft carried out more bombing and the army's tanks shelled several locations despite an announced three-hour "humanitarian" lull.

Hamas meanwhile also rejected the United Nations resolution which called for an "immediate, durable" ceasefire on the grounds that it only served Israel's interests.

Two weeks on from the start of Operation Cast Lead, nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, according to medics in Gaza.

Gaza medics say children account for 230 of the victims and 92 women have also been killed.

Pressure on the two sides increased with a late night UN Security Council resolution which demanded an "immediate, durable" ceasefire leading to the "full withdrawal" of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Fourteen of the 15 council members voted in favour. The United States, Israel's main ally, abstained but refrained from vetoing the resolution agreed after lengthy negotiations between Arab and Western foreign ministers.

The moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose power is limited to the West Bank, called the UN move an "important step," but stressed that applying it was key.

The response from Olmert however was dismissive, calling it "impractical" in the face of continued rocket attacks by Hamas.

Israel launched its war against the Islamists on December 27 aiming to end rocket attacks in southern Israel and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from Egypt.

"Israel has never agreed for any outside influence to decide on its right to defend its citizens," Olmert said in a statement.

"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will continue to operate in order to defend the citizens of Israel and will carry out the task it was given for the operation," said the statement, which was released as his security cabinet met.

A senior official later confirmed the security cabinet had decided to continue the offensive in Gaza despite the security council resolution.

"The ministers reiterated Israel's full right to defend its citizens to which end the IDF will continue its operations," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

A Hamas official in Beirut, Raafat Morra, said his group was also rejecting the UN resolution, as "it is not in the best interest of the Palestinian people."

Israel staged more than 50 airstrikes in Gaza which Palestinian emergency services said killed 12 civilians, taking the death toll since the campaign began to almost 800.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or rocket attacks into Israel over the same period.

Hamas and its allies fired more than 15 rockets into southern Israel, injuring one person, the military said. At least four Grad rockets hit Beersheva, about 40km from Gaza.

The violence on the ground has prompted the United Nations' main aid agency in Gaza, UNRWA, to halt to all its operations, raising fears that the territory's beleaguered 1.5 million population will soon go hungry.

"The need on the ground is dire," a spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme told AFP from Egypt's Rafah border crossing with Gaza, through which aid has passed since the conflict began.

"Eighty percent of the population is in need right now, maybe even beyond that," said Nancy Ronan. "We got food into Gaza, but we now have a problem distributing it because of the security situation."

The ICRC said it is restricting Gaza operations to the territory's main city after a vehicle was hit, apparently by Israeli forces, a spokeswoman said.

"We had an incident when one of our trucks travelling at the front of a convoy of 13 ambulances delivering medical assistance to south Gaza was shot at," ICRC spokeswoman Anne Sophie Bonefeld told AFP. She said one person was wounded.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been leading mediation efforts and was due to hold talks with Abbas on Saturday.

But Arab anger at the conflict is mounting with more than 50,000 Egyptians rallying after prayers in the city of Alexandria to condemn Israel's onslaught.

Legislators affiliated with the opposition Muslim Brotherhood led the protest in the ancient Mediterranean port city that echoed to such slogans as "Down with Israel and with every collaborator."