Gaza death toll reaches 765
GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinians in the Gaza Strip faced worsening conditions on Thursday after two aid drivers were killed and their U.N. agency halted work, saying staff were at risk from Israeli forces fighting Hamas militants.
Gaza medics and the Red Crescent recovered 35 more bodies from battle areas of north and east Gaza, raising the reported Palestinian death toll to 765. But Israel came under sharp Red Cross criticism that it was delaying access to casualties.
Alarmed by conditions for 1.5 million Palestinians in overcrowded Gaza, the United States, Britain and France dropped objections to a binding U.N. resolution on the crisis and worked on getting an immediate cease-fire resolution.
As diplomacy ground on, relief agencies faced grave risks.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) decided to "suspend all its operations in the Gaza Strip because of the increasing hostile actions against its premises and personnel," a spokesman said.
The move followed the deaths of two Palestinian forklift drivers in an UNRWA convoy hit by an Israeli tank shell.
UNRWA provides food and other aid to some 750,000 Gazans. Its work would be halted "until the Israeli army can guarantee the safety and security of our staff," the agency said.
Israeli fire has hit two UNRWA schools, killing more than 45 Palestinians, medical officials in Gaza said.
ROCKETS CONTINUE
An Israeli soldier was killed by sniper, the Israeli army said, raising its battlefield toll to nine since the assault began on December 27, including four hit by "friendly" fire. Three Israeli civilians have been killed by Gaza rockets.
Around 20 rockets hit Israel on Thursday, substantially fewer than at the start of the war. Israel is bent on halting Hamas rocket fire so that "quiet will reign supreme," as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.
That goal had not been achieved and a decision on further military action "is still ahead of us," he said.
In Washington, the Senate adopted a bipartisan resolution "reaffirming Israel's inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza," majority leader Harry Reid said.
The United States would do the same if "rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada" hit Buffalo, New York, he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said one of its teams found four starving Gaza children huddled beside a dozen corpses in a house 80 metres (yards) from the Israeli army. Their mothers were among the dead.
The ICRC accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the battlefield. It said the army must have known of the situation but did not help the wounded, in violation of international law.
"This is a shocking incident," said Pierre Wettach, ICRC chief for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Israeli nerves were rattled in the morning when a rocket fired from southern Lebanon hit an old people's home in Nahariya, raising fears that Hezbollah fighters were opening a second front to relieve pressure on Gaza.
Israel, which fought a 34-day war with Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006, responded only with a few artillery rounds and Israeli ministers said it looked like an isolated attack.
VATICAN ROW
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli air strikes and ground attacks killed at least nine civilians and three gunmen, medical officials said. They included two brothers aged six and 13, killed when an Israeli air strike missed a group of Islamic Jihad fighters in Abassan in the south.
A Ukrainian woman, who had refused to leave Gaza, and her son were killed when a tank shell hit their house, medics said.
Israel again suspended its assault briefly on Thursday to help Gaza's inhabitants stock up on much-needed supplies. The army observed a similar three-hour lull on Wednesday.
While pursuing its Gaza war, Israel has said it accepts the "principles" of the European-Egyptian cease-fire proposal. Washington has urged Israel to study the plan.
Officials of Hamas, shunned by the West for espousing violence, said the group was still considering it. The militants say they will never accept Israel, whose establishment in war 60 years ago dispossessed and uprooted the Palestinian people.
European governments offered to back the cease-fire proposal with an EU border force to stop Hamas, which took over Gaza in 2007, from rearming via tunnels under the border with Egypt.
The plan would also address Palestinian calls for an end to Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. Hamas called off a six-month cease-fire late last month, accusing Israel of breaking an agreement to open border crossings to more supplies.
Relations between the Vatican and Israel, never easy, chilled further over Gaza. The Jewish state condemned an aide to Pope Benedict for calling Gaza "a big concentration camp," the Vatican's toughest criticism of Israel since its offensive.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel was astounded at "the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda, coming from a member of the College of Cardinals."
(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut and Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)