The Independent: The Palestinian death toll for the two-week conflict rose to 777, many of them children. Thirteen Israelis have also been killed.
Overnight the UN Security Council had approved a resolution calling urgently for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The US, Israel’s closest ally, abstained from the vote.
In Israel’s first official response to the resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said the Hamas rockets fired at Israel today “only prove that the UN’s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organisations.”
A Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group “is not interested” in the ceasefire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.
He said the UN failed to consider the interests of the Palestinian people.
“This resolution doesn’t mean that the war is over,” he said.
Israel’s government says any ceasefire must guarantee an end to rocket fire and arms smuggling into Gaza.
Hamas has said it will not accept any agreement that does not include the full opening of Gaza’s blockaded border crossings. Israel is unlikely to agree to that demand, as it would allow Hamas to strengthen its hold on the territory which it violently seized in June 2007.
