Gaza was largely quiet on Wednesday with just two air strikes reported, a stark contrast with the previous four days of heavy aerial bombardment by Israeli warplanes against the Islamist Hamas-led enclave.
Foreign powers have increased pressure on both sides to halt hostilities and the fall-off in military activity may be a sign the Jewish state might be inclined to lessen its assault, although both sides have been cool to the idea of a truce.
The Israeli Cabinet on Wednesday will debate a French proposal for a 48-hour truce to allow aid into the enclave. Israeli media said ministers were divided over the idea.
The Haaretz daily reported Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in favour of a ground operation while Defence Minister Ehud Barak wanted a 48-hour truce to test Hamas’s readiness for a durable ceasefire.
Israel began attacking Gaza on December 27 against militants firing rockets.
An Israeli army spokesperson said two air strikes, one on smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt and another on government offices in Gaza City, were carried out on Wednesday. There were no reports of casualties.
Hamas said the onus was on Israel to stop the assaults while Israeli media quoted Olmert as saying the offensive was in the first of many stages.
Israeli media reported that Cabinet ministers approved the mobilisation of 2 500 army reservists, consolidating an earlier call-up of 6 500 soldiers for the garrison on the Gaza border.
Olmert’s centrist government launched the military offensive six weeks before a February 10 election that opinion polls predict the opposition right-wing Likud party will win, with the goal of halting rocket attacks by militants in Gaza.
Medical officials put Palestinian casualties at 384 dead and more than 800 wounded. A United Nations agency said at least 62 of the dead were civilians. Four Israelis have been killed.
France said it would host Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday and an Israeli official said French President Nicolas Sarkozy might visit Jerusalem next Monday.
In Gaza, basic food supplies were running low and power failures were affecting much of the territory. Hospitals were struggling to cope with the high number of casualties from the offensive.
Israel says its air campaign is aimed at ending rocket fire from Gaza, which intensified after Hamas declared the end of an Egyptian-brokered truce with the Jewish state on December 19.
Previous military campaigns failed to halt the salvoes, which rarely cause casualties but often sow panic in southern Israel where one-eighth of the country’s population lives.
Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 from rival Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas. It has balked at demands by Western powers that it recognise Israel and renounce violence. – Reuters