Israel dismisses truce
Published:Wednesday | December 31, 2008 | 12:31 PM
Israel has rejected international calls for a 48-hour truce in the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid to come in.
Israel has launched air strikes on Gaza for a fifth day, and more Hamas rockets are said to have landed in southern Israel.
The town of Beersheba has been the deepest penetrated by rockets so far.
A foreign ministry spokesman earlier said a unilateral 48-hour halt was unrealistic, as long as Hamas continued to fire at Israel.
Meanwhile, a Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum is criticizing the current international truce proposals.
He says international and Arab efforts must instead focus on ending the aggression.
The 48-hour ceasefire plan to allow aid into Gaza, proposed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, was rejected during an Israeli leadership meeting late on Tuesday.
Palestinian officials say about 391 Palestinians have died in Israeli air strikes since Saturday.
The Israeli air strikes began less than a week after the expiry of a six-month-long ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but has kept tight control over access in and out of Gaza and its airspace.