Israel mulls Gaza truce as toll tops 100

JERUSALEM: Israeli leaders Tuesday discussed an Egyptian plan for a truce with Gaza's ruling Hamas, reports said, before a mission by the UN chief to Jerusalem and as the toll from Israeli raids on Gaza rose over 100.

The early morning talks came as the UN Security Council hit deadlock on a statement on the conflict with the United States saying it opposed any action that undermines efforts to reach a ceasefire.

Ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner circle -- the Forum of Nine -- held lengthy talks over whether to agree to a ceasefire or expand the air and naval campaign into a ground operation, but no decision was announced, Israeli public radio reported.

It said Israel would like a 24- to 48-hour truce to be observed so that the two sides could work out a lasting ceasefire, with Israel possibly looking into easing its embargo on the Gaza Strip.

One Israeli television channel suggested Netanyahu was inclined to approve a truce, with a halt to the hostilities seen within 24 hours.

As the violence raged for a sixth day Monday, with Israeli strikes killing 32 Palestinians, a missile killed a senior Islamic Jihad militant in a Gaza City tower housing Palestinian and international media, the second time in as many days it has been targeted.

With UN chief Ban Ki-moon in Cairo pushing for a ceasefire, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal said his movement was committed to efforts to secure a truce, but insisted that Israel must lift its six-year blockade of the Gaza Strip.

In New York, US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said there had to be an agreed ceasefire between the Israelis and Hamas for any halt in violence to be "meaningful or sustainable."

But Russia warned that unless an Arab-proposed statement calling for Israel-Hamas hostilities to end was agreed by Tuesday morning it would press for a vote on the full council resolution -- setting up a potential veto clash with the United States.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany all had problems with a text proposed by Arab nations last Thursday because it made no mention of rocket fire from Palestinian militants in Gaza, diplomats said.

Terrified and desperate, many Gaza families have fled their homes, some seeking haven in the south, which has seen fewer strikes.

Mourners flocked to the funeral of nine members of one family killed in a weekend strike on a Gaza City home, the bodies of the five children carried through the streets wrapped in Palestinian flags.

As the overall death toll in Gaza hit 109, with the 32 killed on Monday making it the bloodiest day so far, the Israeli army said that 42 rockets had struck Israel and another 19 had been intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system.

To date, the military has struck more than 1,350 targets in Gaza, and 640 rockets have hit southern Israel while another 324 have been intercepted.

The violence, coming ahead of an Israeli general election on January 22, raised the spectre of a broader Israeli military campaign like its 22-day Operation Cast Lead, launched at the end of December 2008.

Analysts say the Israeli leadership appears satisfied with the success of Operation Pillar of Defence and that it could be ready for a ceasefire.

But the Jewish state has also signalled a readiness to expand the operation.

All the signs point to preparations for a ground operation, with the army sealing all roads around Gaza and some 40,000 reservists reportedly massed along the border.

The latest negotiations aimed at ending the conflict, conducted behind closed doors in Cairo, ended without agreement. But all sides have expressed a willingness to engage in more talks.

The UN chief flew to Egypt "to add his diplomatic weight to these efforts, which are considerable and extremely important", his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

As Russia accused the United States of seeking to "filibuster" a UN Security Council statement on Gaza, Ban was to meet Egypt's Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr, and President Mohamed Morsi and Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi on Tuesday, Nesirky said.

He will then go to Jerusalem to see Israeli leaders but has no plan to go to Gaza.

The League's Arabi is due in Gaza on Tuesday, accompanied by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and several Arab top diplomats, in the latest in a series of visits that have eased the long diplomatic isolation of the territory's Hamas rulers.

Hamas is also understood to be seeking guarantees Israel will stop its targeted killings, like the one that killed a top military commander on Wednesday, sparking the current hostilities.

Israel has its own demands, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisting "the first and absolute condition for a truce is stopping all fire from Gaza."

-AFP/ac

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India military ties can alter world power dynamics: US thinktank

WASHINGTON: Suggesting that the US relationship with India has the potential to alter the power dynamics in Asia and the world, a leading US think tank has proposed a deeper military engagement between two countries.

This "can have a range of strategic benefits, including the enhancement of military capabilities, building long-term professional relationships, as well as strategic signalling to allies, partners, and potential adversaries," says a new report by the Wadhwani chair in US-India Policy Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

In the case of US-India military ties, the relationship has witnessed elements of all three benefits in a short period of time, says the report entitled "US-India Military Engagement: Steady as They Go", noting India now conducts more exercises with the United States than with any other country in the world.

Authored by S. Amer Latif, a visiting fellow with the Wadhwani Chair, the report examines the current state of bilateral military relations and puts forward a series of recommendations to strengthen these ties.

However, there are limits to how far military engagement can go over the next 5 to 10 years given a number of challenges that exist, the report says noting "both sides have yet to develop a common strategic end state that defines their relationship."

"Part of the problem lies in India's reluctance to become too closely entwined with the United States due to its foreign policy orientation of 'strategic autonomy,' which eschews excessively close relations with any single power," it says.

At a practical level, this approach hinders the development of interoperability between the military services since the concept carries a connotation of an alliance-like relationship within India, the report says.

Despite the range of obstacles to deeper cooperation, there are several practical steps both sides can take to continue building on their recent record of strengthening military cooperation, it says.

As India's power and confidence grow in the coming years, bilateral expectations and engagement can adjust accordingly, the report suggests.

"However, much more could be accomplished if both sides apply themselves and remove the current obstacles to military cooperation."

"With the twenty-first century poised to be an Asian one, the United States and India now have an opportunity to develop a relationship that will not only create a stable and secure environment for each other, but the larger Indo-Pacific region as well," the report concludes.

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

___

Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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Israel Combats Cyber Attacks During Gaza Offensive

The Israeli government said today that since the beginning of its military operation in Gaza, cyber attackers have launched more than 44 million attempts to disrupt the operation of various Israeli government websites, but were only successful in knocking out one site for a short period.

"One hacking attempt was successful and took down a site for a few minutes," Carmela Avner, the Chief Information Officer at the Finance Ministry, told ABC News. Avner said the website in question belongs to a "small unit of one of the ministries," but declined to comment further.

Israeli Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz ordered the government CIO unit to operate in emergency mode but said he remains confident in its abilities.

"We are reaping the fruits on the investment in recent years in the development of computerized defense systems, but we have a lot of work in store for us," he told reporters during a visit to the Government Computing Center in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister's office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the President's residence were among the government websites targeted. Israeli government websites are a common target of cyber attacks, Avner said, but the sheer volume this time around indicated a clear escalation during the Gaza operation.

The dramatic spike comes after the loose hacking collective Anonymous announced online that it would be targeting Israeli websites "in retaliation for the mistreating of people in Gaza and other areas."

Michael Gottschalk/AFP/Getty Images

Anonymous, the same group that reportedly took out the CIA's public website for a few hours in February, claimed it had attacked approximately 10,000 Israeli websites, both government and private.

Avner said most of the attacks on the government websites were designed to overload the site servers with excessive data. One method of doing that, known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attack, is a fairly rudimentary tactic historically favored by Anonymous.

Tweeting under the hashtag "OpIsrael" after the name it had given to its campaign, Anonymous claimed to have disrupted service on dozens of private Israeli websites, including the website for the Bank of Jerusalem and the local servers for news outlet MSN and search engine Bing. Both MSN and Bing's Israeli home pages appeared to have experienced trouble earlier Monday but were functioning properly as of this report. The Bank of Jerusalem's website's homepage was functioning but its English section was inaccessible.

Anonymous also tweeted a link to what it presented as the personal contact information of more than 3,000 "donors to Israel," including members of the U.S. Congress. Much of the data appeared to be a compilation of publicly available contact information.

As the real-world military operation gained steam last week, Anonymous posted what it dubbed as a "Gaza Care Package," containing information in Arabic and English about how to circumvent Israeli online surveillance by shielding IP addresses and how to set up alternative Wi-Fi access in the event of an internet shutdown.

Anonymous made the care package apparently in response to what it called Israeli threats to cut off electricity and internet access in Gaza. That threat was not reported elsewhere and there have been no reports of internet or power outages in Gaza so far.

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More diplomacy to try to halt Israel-Gaza fighting

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hostilities between Islamist militants and Israel entered a sixth day on Monday as diplomatic efforts were set to intensify to try to stop rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount after the deadliest single incident in the flare-up on Sunday claimed the lives of at least 11 Palestinian civilians, including four children.

Three people, including two children, were killed and 30 others were injured in the latest air strike before dawn on Monday on a family home in the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, medical officials said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment and was checking.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Cairo to add his weight to the truce efforts. Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and its officials met the parties on Sunday.

Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had been to Cairo for talks on ending the fighting, although a government spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met Khaled Meshaal, the political leader of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, and Ramadan Shallah of Islamic Jihad as part of the mediation efforts, but a statement did not say if talks were conclusive.

Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".

Listing Israel's terms, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the impoverished enclave, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

The 11 Palestinian civilians were apparently killed during an Israeli attack on a militant, which brought a three-storey house crashing down on them.

Gaza health officials have said 78 Palestinians, 23 of them children and several women, have been killed in Gaza since Israel's offensive began. Hundreds have been wounded.

GRAVE CONCERN

Ban expressed grave concern in a statement before setting off for the region. He will visit Israel on Tuesday.

"I am deeply saddened by the reported deaths of more than ten members of the Dalu family... (and) by the continuing firing of rockets against Israeli towns, which have killed several Israeli civilians. I strongly urge the parties to cooperate with all efforts led by Egypt to reach an immediate ceasefire," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in the military showdown with Hamas.

Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day on Sunday. Israel's "Iron Dome" missile shield shot down all three rockets.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border with Gaza and military convoys moved on roads in the area.

Israel has authorized the call-up of 75,000 reservists, although there was no immediate sign when or whether they might be needed in a ground invasion.

Israel's operation has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there have also been a growing number of appeals to seek an end to the hostilities.

Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday, but gave no further details.

The Israeli military said 544 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since Wednesday, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Some 302 rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome and 99 failed to reach Israel and landed inside the Gaza Strip.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years. The rockets now have greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within their reach.

The southern resort city of Eilat was apparently added to the list of targets when residents said they heard an explosion thought to be a rocket, but it caused no damage or casualties, police said.

Eilat is thought to be well out of the range of any rocket in possession of Hamas or any other Gaza group. But Palestinian militants have in the recent past fired rockets at Eilat and its surroundings, using Egypt's Sinai desert as a launch site.

SWORN ENEMIES

Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.

Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006 but a year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas the Islamist group seized control of Gaza in a brief and bloody civil war with forces loyal to Abbas.

Abbas then dismissed the Hamas government led by the group's leader Ismail Haniyeh but he refuses to recognize Abbas' authority and runs Gazan affairs.

While it is denounced as a terrorist organization in the West, Hamas enjoys widespread support in the Arab world, where Islamist parties are on the rise.

Western-backed Abbas and Fatah hold sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank from their seat of government in the town of Ramallah. The Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.

(Writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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HSBC in talks to sell stake in Chinese insurer

HONG KONG: Banking giant HSBC said Monday it was in talks to sell its stake in China's Ping An Insurance Group, the country's second-largest life insurer by premiums.

The British-based but Asia-focused lender said in a statement it was "in discussions which may or may not lead" to the sale of its 15.57 percent stake, which the bank bought in 2002 before Ping An's listing in Hong Kong.

HSBC is the single-biggest shareholder in Ping An, which has a market capitalisation of HK$186 billion ($24 billion).

It did not reveal the party it was in talks with but Hong Kong Economic Journal newspaper cited sources saying Thai businessman Dhanin Chearavanont, owner of the Charoen Pokphand group, might be interested.

The Hong Kong-listed shares of Ping An fell 2.69 percent to HK$58.0 at the lunch break. The benchmark Hang Seng Index was 0.65 percent higher.

HSBC has been selling non-core assets as part of a broad restructuring plan designed to boost profitability.

The London-listed bank is also setting aside hundreds of millions of dollars as provision for fines related to possible criminal charges over money laundering allegations in the United States.

Net profits tumbled by more than half to $2.498 billion in the three months to September, compared with a year earlier.

-AFP/ac

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Narendra Modi uses 3D telecast to address audiences in four cities

AHMEDABAD: Tech-savvy chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi on Sunday scored a first when he launched his election campaign for the assembly by addressing rallies in four cities simultaneously.

In his speech, telecast on specially erected screens in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot and Surat with the help of 3D holographic technology and satellite link-ups, Modi, who spoke from a studio in Gandhinagar, took on Congress for comparing him to "monkey" and "rats".

He said he took pride in being called so, because both these creatures were "messengers of God".

"Had Congress leaders studied Ramayana, they would have got a fair idea of 'vanar shakti'. I accept the title given by them to me," Modi said, while lashing out at Congress for using "foul language".

During the recent election rallies, state Congress chief Arjun Modhwadia and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Hussain Dalwai had compared Modi to "monkey" and "rats", respectively.

"Devotion and services of lord Hanuman are known globally....I have got the chance to serve Gujarat, so the six crore Gujaratis are like Ram to me, I am their Hanuman," Modi said.

Further, he said, the Congress leader was unaware of significance of rats in the Hindu mythology. "Rat is considered to be vehicle of 'vighn-harta' Ganesh....I feel proud that with Lord Ganesh on my back, Gujarat faces no problems."

Modi claimed that for the first time in the world an election campaign was being launched using 3D technology and telecast in four places. "You are witnessing a unique and first-ever incident..,"he said. His image, projected on screens in four places, was clear, but there were some technical glitches. Audio output was not available for a few minutes.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Officials: Israeli Strike Kills 11 Civilians in Gaza

The Palestinian civilian death toll mounts as Israel ferociously pursues Gaza Strip militants who are menacing nearly half of Israel's population with rocket fire.

Early on Monday, an airstrike leveled two houses belonging to a single family, killing two children and two adults and injuring 42 people, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra. Rescue workers were frantically searching for 12 to 15 people under the rubble.

Is Ceasefire Possible for Israel and Hamas? Watch Video

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the ruins of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Al-Kidra says flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby.

The rising toll was likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed militant targets in Gaza for a fifth straight day on Sunday, launching aerial and naval attacks as its military prepared for a possible ground invasion, though Egypt saw "some indications" of a truce ahead.

Forty-seven Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 12 children, have been killed in Israel's raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday, killing a leading militant of the Hamas Islamist group that controls Gaza and rejects Israel's existence, with the declared goal of deterring gunmen in the coastal enclave from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Jewish state has since launched more than 950 air strikes on the coastal Palestinian territory, targeting weaponry and flattening militant homes and headquarters.

The raids continued past midnight on Sunday, with warships bombarding targets from the sea. And an air raid targeted a building in Gaza City housing the offices of local Arab media, wounding three journalists from al Quds television, a station Israel sees as pro-Hamas, witnesses said.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jebalya refugee camp killed one child and wounded 12 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a televised news conference.

"This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning."

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel's blows Hamas "is still strong enough to destroy the enemy."

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant's family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its southern region shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas' armed wing claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel's operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron "expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides," in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

The United Kingdom was "putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate," the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu "to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end."

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees."

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope," but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, though, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, signaled it was still weighing a possible ground offensive into Gaza.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: "Definitely."

"We have a plan. ... It will take time. We need to have patience. It won't be a day or two," he added.

Another senior commander briefing reporters on condition of anonymity said Israel had scored "good achievements" in striking at nearly 1,000 targets, with the aim of ridding Hamas of firepower imported from Libya, Sudan and Iran.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year's period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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