Israel said today it will not stop its offensive in the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement the military “will continue acting to protect Israeli citizens and will carry out the missions it was given.” The statement said Palestinian rocket fire today showed the Security Council’s call for a ceasefire “is not practical.”
The statement is the first official Israeli response to the council’s resolution which was passed late last night.
"The firing of rockets this morning only goes to show that the UN decision is unworkable and will not be adhered to by the murderous Palestinian organisations," Mr Olmert added in the statement, which saidthe army "would go on defending citizens."
Hamas is also likely reject the United Nations Security Council resolution. A spokesman for the Islamist Palestinian group said in Damascus: “The mood is to reject it”.
Abu Khaled Osama added: “We want the lifting of the blockade and the end of the aggression, the withdrawal of the Israelis, to happen at the same time as the ceasefire, immediately, not to be deferred to a later stage and subjected to conditions”.
However, a delegation of three leaders left the embattled territory today to join talks in Cairo on a truce proposal, Hamas said.
They include political leader Jamal Abu Hashem, parliamentary leader Salah al-Bardaweel and Hamas official Ayman Taha.
Hamas did not say how they managed to cross the border, heavily bombed for the past 14 days by Israeli forces trying to destroy a network of tunnels Hamas has used to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.
About 770 Palestinians and 14 Israelis have been killed so far in the Israeli offensive in Gaza and Israeli bombs blasted the Gaza Strip for a 14th day today.
Warplanes dropped bombs on the outskirts of the city of Gaza, residents said. Elsewhere, Palestinian medics said tanks shelled a house in Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza Strip, killing six Palestinians from the same family.
Israel’s key ally the United States abstained in last night’s UN vote in New York, noting talks on a truce were still under way under Egyptian mediation.
Mr Olmert's security cabinet on Wednesday put off a decision on whether to launch a massive escalation of the offensive on Hamas guerrillas by moving troops in a third phase deep into urban areas, a move that would mean calling in reservists. Officials said ministers were meeting again from noon.
The onslaught in Gaza, where many civilians including children have been killed, has solid support among Israeli voters who go to the polls in a month. A poll today showed over 90per cent support among Israel's Jewish majority.
More than 18 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip today, medical workers said. They said some of the fatalities were civilians but gave no exact figures.
The UN said in a report that 30 Palestinians were killed earlier this week when the Israeli army sheltered dozens of civilians in a house which was later hit by shells.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, governed by Hamas's rival Fatah movement under President Mahmoud Abbas, have been enraged by the Israeli offensive, and Israeli forces and Abbas's police were on high alert today in case of violence around weekly prayers at mosques around midday.
Several thousand people demonstrated and burned Israeli flags in Hebron, a Hamas stronghold in the West Bank.
The death toll in the two-week onslaught has stunned West Bank Palestinians, eclipsing an internal quarrel between those ready to recognise Israel in return for statehood and those, like Gaza's Hamas fighters, who are determined to continue armed resistance.
Around 4,000 people protested in Ramallah after the Muslim noon prayer. Supporters of Hamas, the Islamic movement which controls Gaza, said Fatah-dominated police of the Palestinian Authority tried to intimidate them.
Police fired tea gas to disperse Hamas supporters in the crowd who taunted them as "Jews" and "collaborators" of Israel.
The protest broke up after an hour.
The UN resolution spoke of a ceasefire that was not only "immediate" but also "durable and fully respected", language that chimes with Israeli and US demands in those negotiations that Israel secure guarantees that its Hamas Islamist enemies will be unable to rearm by halting smuggling from Egypt.
France, which brokered a ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt on Tuesday, said the resolution complemented negotiations being mediated by Cairo but made clear it did not expect Israel to act immediately: "It's not the end of the story," foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevalier said.
Agencies