Israel again pounds Gaza ahead of ceasefire vote

[DogPoundPup]

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A woman and a child were killed in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school in the northern town of Beit Lahiya where civilians had taken refuge from fierce clashes between Israeli ground troops and Palestinian fighters, medics said.

"This yet again illustrates the tragedy that there is no safe place in Gaza. Not even a UN installation is safe," Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, told AFP. "There is no place to flee."

It was at least the fourth Israeli strike on an UNRWA-operated school in Gaza and the UN agency demanded an investigation.

Elsewhere in the territory, a two-year-old baby and three other people were killed as Israel hammered Gaza with some 50 raids on tunnels, rocket launchers and suspected weapons stores including two mosques, medics and the army said.

The raids came ahead of a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet later on Saturday that is expected to approve an end to the war after the Jewish state won pledges from Washington and Cairo to help prevent arms smuggling into the Islamist-run enclave from Egypt.

Under the terms of the proposal, Israel would silence its guns even without a reciprocal agreement from Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since mid-2007, a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But Hamas official Osama Hemdan said the Islamists would not accept any such move by Israel.

"This unilateral ceasefire does not foresee a withdrawal" by the Israeli army, said Hemdan, the movement's Lebanon representative.

"As long as it remains in Gaza, resistance and confrontation will continue," he told AFP by telephone.

The Israeli official made clear that the army would respond to any Hamas attacks even after a ceasefire order from the security cabinet.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090117/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazaunsuspend_20090117104341