Anti-Israeli protestors clash with Lebanon police near US embassy

BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at dozens of angry demonstrators who protested near the US embassy Sunday against Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The incident occurred when Lebanese and Palestinian leftists of various political groups broke through barbed wire down the street from the embassy and neared the next barricade to the mission compound in Awkar, just north of Beirut.

Several of the demonstrators were seen to be hurt in the clashes.

The tear gas forced the crowd to disperse although some demonstrators regrouped and continued to protest, calling on the US ambassador to be expelled from the country.

Another protest, by dozens of members of the leftist Democratic People's Party, was staged near the US embassy later in the day.

Protestors burned dummies of US President George W. Bush, US President-elect Barack Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as well as American and Israeli flags.

Before leaving, they placed dolls representing babies killed in Israel's war on Gaza on the barbed wire barricade.

The protests comes amid sporadic fire after Israel began a unilateral truce early on Sunday morning in its 22-day-long war on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that killed at least 1,300 Palestinians.

Does Facebook Replace Face Time, or Enhance It?

Jenny has not returned my calls in roughly a year. She has, however, sent me a poinsettia, poked me, and placed a gift beneath my Christmas tree. She's done all this virtually, courtesy of Facebook.com, the online social networking site where users create profiles, gather "friends," and join common interest groups, not to mention send digital gifts. Though Jenny has three children, ages 4 to 14, and rarely finds time for visits, phone calls or even e-mail, the full-time mom in upstate New York regularly updates her status on Facebook ("Jenny is fixing a birthday dinner," "Jenny took the kids sledding") and uploads photos (her son in the school play). After 24 years, our friendship is now filtered through Facebook, relegated to the online world. Call it Facebook Recluse Syndrome, and Jenny is far from the site's only social hermit.


Though Facebook started as an online hub for college students, its fastest-growing demographic is the over-25 crowd, which now accounts for more than half of the site's 140 million active members. Why is Facebook catching on among harried parents and professionals? "It makes me feel like I have a grip on my world," says Emily Neill, a 39-year-old single mother of two. Neill isn't a techie, per se - "I'll never have a phone that does anything but make calls," says the fashion consultant in Watertown, Mass. - but stays logged on to Facebook all day at work, and then spends an hour or two, or lately three, at night checking in with old acquaintances, swapping photos with close friends, instant messaging those who fall somewhere in between. "It makes you feel like you're part of something even if you're neglecting people in the flesh," she says.


Retreating behind the digital veil started long before the Internet existed, with the advent of answering machines. "People would call a phone when they knew the other person wasn't available to pick up," says Charles Steinfield, a professor at Michigan State University who co-authored a peer-reviewed study called "The Benefits of Facebook 'Friends'". "It enabled them to convey information without forcing them to interact."


Enter Facebook, which provides a constant flow of information via short updates from everyone a user knows: a distant cousin is glad he skipped the cheeseburger chowder; a colleague has a new book is on sale; a close friend is engaged or newly single. Jenny and I, along with three of our childhood pals from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., learned that a dear old friend had ended her seven-year relationship through a Facebook status change. We expressed dismay, albeit through Facebook's IM feature, that we had to learn such potent information in this impersonal way.


Yet, for many users, Facebook somehow remains distinctly personal. Although social networking sites encourage connections among strangers - as on MySpace, where people converge through common interests, or online dating, where the whole point is greeting new faces - Facebook is more geared toward helping people maintain existing connections. The site serves as a self-updating address book, keeping users connected no matter their geographical shifts. "There are people from my past life that I never would have tracked through 10 job changes and 20 e-mail changes," says Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor at Michigan State and lead author of the Facebook "Friends" study, which focused on undergraduate usage of the site. Facebook offers what she describes as "a seamless way of keeping in touch that doesn't involve all this work."


Perhaps this is the key. Jenny's online sociability and offline silence probably has less to do with digital retreating than time management. Facebook offers e-mail, IM and photo sharing in what Neill calls the "one-stop shopping" of online interaction. "It's not surprising to me that it's replacing other forms of communication," says Steinfield.


It's still surprising to me, however, this combination of Orwell and Wall-E that has humans watching each other through computer screens and socializing in quasi-isolation. Neill says Facebook has brought her closer to her already close friends, those she has little time to see because of kids and work. "I know more about them now than I did when I was in regular contact with them," she says.


I believe her. But I can't help wondering: If Facebook for some reason suddenly ceased to exist, would people like Jenny revert to phone calls or visits, or would they lose touch altogether?


I probably won't find out. Instead, I gave in. Last week, I sent Jenny a note - through Facebook, naturally - requesting a get-together. She accepted. When we met up, it seemed we were closer than I'd thought. I knew about Jenny's son's part in the school play, about her sledding expedition and what she'd cooked for that big birthday dinner - what we'd be sharing if we still lived in the same neighborhood and talked regularly, the inane and intimate details that add up to life. That constant stream of data is some digital form of closeness. "A beautiful blossoming garden of information about your friends," as Neill puts it, adding, "I don't see how that can be a bad thing."

Nigeria militants report botched hostage rescue

By EDWARD HARRIS, Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria – Militants said Sunday that the Nigerian military botched a rescue mission aimed at liberating two British hostages held captive in Nigeria's restive southern oil region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in an e-mail message that the overnight mission caused the militants to separate the British victims and move them deeper into the region's vast network of creeks and mangrove swamps.

The militants said the hostages weren't in the village where the military launched its attack, which the militants said left some men, women and children dead.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen attacked vessels near a crude-oil loading installation late Saturday and one crew member was killed, a private security official said Sunday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to company prohibitions on dealings with the news media, said the gunmen had initially tried to board an oil tanker, but turned their sites on smaller service vessels after failing to board the tanker. Some crew members were reported kidnapped, but no details were immediately available, the official said.

A military spokesman couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The British hostages are among 27 oil workers, including five expatriates, kidnapped by militants when their vessel was hijacked Sept. 9. The other hostages were later released.

The militants are behind nearly three years of rising violence in the southern Niger Delta, where over 200 hundred foreign workers have been kidnapped. The hostages are normally released after a ransom is paid.

The militants say their deeply impoverished areas have not benefited from five decades of oil production, and they are agitating for more federally held oil funds to be sent to the southern oil states.

The government acknowledges the grievances of many in the southern Niger Delta, but denounces the militants as criminals who use their struggle as a cover to make money by stealing crude oil and selling it overseas.

Corrupt government officials, however, also siphon off and sell oil and many state-level politicians are linked to the militants and other armed gangs, whom they hire to rig elections.

Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer, but attacks on the industry's infrastructure have reduced production by almost a quarter. It is routinely ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Hamas ceases fire in Gaza, gives Israel week to go

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire by its fighters and allied groups in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, senior Hamas official Ayman Taha said, adding that the Islamists gave Israel a week to pull out its troops.

"Hamas and the factions announce a ceasefire in Gaza starting immediately and give Israel a week to withdraw," Ayman Taha, a Hamas official in Cairo for talks with Egypt on a truce deal.

Hamas also demanded that Israel open all of the Gaza Strip's border crossings to allow in food and other goods to meet the "basic needs for our people."

Israel said earlier on Sunday that it will not consider a timetable for withdrawing all of its forces from the Gaza Strip until Hamas and other militants cease their fire.

Palestinians in Gaza agree to one-week cease-fire

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – A leader of the militant Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip says his group and Hamas have agreed to stop attacks on Israelis for a week, following Israel's declaration of a unilateral cease-fire.

The Islamic Jihad's Daoud Shihab, says other, smaller, militant groups have also agreed to join the truce. There has been no immediate response from Israel.

Shihab told The Associated Press that the factions will jointly make a formal announcement later on Sunday.

Shihab says a longer cease-fire will be conditional on Israel withdrawing from Gaza the troops it sent into the strip two weeks ago. He says the militants will also demand that Israel open border crossings into Gaza.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A senior Hamas official says Syria-based radical Palestinian groups will declare a cease-fire and give Israel a week to withdraw from Gaza.

The Hamas official's comments came shortly before the group's exiled leader Khaled Mashaal was to make "an important" announcement in Syria Sunday afternoon regarding Israel's unilateral cease-fire declaration.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make the news public to the media.

Russia and Ukraine reach gas deal

By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW – Negotiations dragged into the early hours Sunday, but in the end the prime ministers of Russia and Ukraine announced a deal to settle the gas dispute that has drastically reduced supplies of Russian gas to Europe for nearly two weeks.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Ukraine will pay 20 percent less than the European price for this year. This means a substantial increase for Ukraine in the first quarter but the price could fall significantly later in the year as gas prices are expected to drop.

"The negotiations were difficult but we reached an agreement that will allow for a contract to be signed," Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said, standing by Putin's side.

Tymoshenko said natural gas supplies would resume once the two countries' gas companies sign a contract. It was not clear how soon this would happen. But Russia's Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz, both state controlled, were told to prepare the documents by Monday, she said.

Before walking out, Putin promised that gas supplies would be restored soon. Both countries had blamed the other for the shutoff of European-bound gas.

The two leaders reached the agreement in talks that stretched into the early hours of the morning after a meeting Saturday with leaders from the 27-nation European Union ended without a resolution.

The EU normally receives about one-fifth of its gas supplies through Ukraine. Nations in eastern Europe that rely on Russia have been left with virtually no new supplies.

The EU threatened to review its relations with both countries if their dispute is not resolved this weekend. EU spokesman Ferran Tarradellas said Saturday that the EU delegation was "encouraged by the discussions" because Russia and Ukraine were seeking solutions rather than just blaming each other, but "what matters are results."

Ukraine paid $179.50 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas in 2008, less than half the price paid by European countries. The European price for the first quarter of 2009 is about $450, but is expected to fall to reflect the decline in world oil prices from more than $140 in July to below $40 in recent trading. Gas prices fluctuate more slowly than oil because gas is generally sold under long-term contracts.

Before talks broke down on Dec. 31, Russia had offered Ukraine a price of $250 for 2009, which Ukraine refused.

The two countries also reached a deal Sunday on the price Russia will pay Ukraine for transporting gas to Europe through its pipelines. Ukraine had insisted that if it paid more for gas, Russia should pay market prices for transit.

But Putin said Sunday that Russia offered Ukraine the "20 percent discount" on the condition that the discounted transit price remain in place for 2009. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2010, however, Ukraine will pay full price for gas and Russia will pay market prices for transit, he said.

Russia currently pays $1.7 to transport 1,000 cubic meters of gas for 100 kilometers (62 miles), which last year amounted to close to $3 billion. Putin has said the market price is about double this.

The global economic crisis has hit Russia hard. With the dramatic fall in the price of oil — the country's main source of revenue — Russia is facing a budget deficit this year for the first time in a decade. Industrial production has slowed and the ruble has come under huge pressure, losing nearly 30 percent of its value since the summer.

Ukraine's economy, however, is in much worse shape. It has been battered by the drop in world prices for steel, the heart of its export-oriented economy, and is heading into a painful recession this year.

Ukraine is heavily dependent on Russian gas and it is not clear how it will manage to pay for the huge amount needed to run its outdated heavy industries and heating systems.

Putin and Tymoshenko made no mention of the more than $600 million that Gazprom claims Ukraine still owes for 2008 supplies.

Russia stopped shipping gas to Ukraine for domestic use on Jan. 1 when the countries could not agree on a price. It then accused Ukraine of siphoning off gas bound for Europe and turned off the taps entirely on Jan. 7.

Russia resumed piping a limited amount of gas toward Ukraine on Tuesday after the EU secured a deal for its monitors check flows, but the gas did not reach Europe. Russia says Ukraine is blocking shipments to European consumers, while Kiev says Russia wants to send gas along a route that would disrupt supplies to Ukrainian consumers.

Geopolitical struggles over Ukraine's future and export routes for the energy riches of the former Soviet Union underlie the commercial dispute.

Russia and Ukraine have been at odds since the 2004 Orange Revolution brought Yushchenko to power. His avid push for Ukraine to join NATO and the EU has angered Moscow.

S. Korea military on alert after North's statement

By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea said its army remained on alert Sunday, a day after North Korea threatened military action in response to Seoul's hard-line stance against its communist regime.

The latest harsh rhetoric from the isolated regime appeared aimed at heightening tensions on the divided peninsula and could be a test for Barack Obama days before he is sworn in as the new U.S. president, an analyst said.

The North's Korean People's Army called South Korea's president a "traitor" and accused him of preparing a military provocation, according to a statement carried Saturday by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Pyongyang said it was adopting "an all-out confrontational posture" and warned of a "strong military retaliatory step." South Korea immediately put its forces on alert.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency reported Sunday that the South has significantly beefed up forces along its heavily armed land border with the North and near their disputed western sea border. But the presidential office and the Defense Ministry denied the report.

A Defense Ministry official said Sunday that the South's military will remain on alert, though there were no unusual moves by the North's forces. The official spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

The North has issued similar threats in the past in anger over hard-line policies that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has implemented since taking office last year. Lee ended previous administrations' unconditional aid to North Korea, but has also called for dialogue.

Saturday's threat from Pyongyang appeared more serious, however, because a uniformed military officer — flanked by colorful military unit flags — read the statement instead of the usual television newsreader.

Analysts said the North's latest saber rattling appears to be a negotiating tactic aimed at Seoul and Washington ahead of Tuesday's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

"North Korean wants to draw Obama's attention," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University.

Kim said Pyongyang is trying to use heightened tension and instability on the Korean peninsula to make a case for its long-standing demand for a peace treaty and establishment of diplomatic ties with Washington — the regime's top foreign policy goal.

South Korea, the U.S. and three other nations have sought to coax North Korea — which detonated an atomic device in 2006 — to give up its nuclear program by offering aid for disarmament. The pact has been deadlocked over how to verify North Korea's past nuclear activities.

Despite the impasse, Seoul's deputy nuclear negotiator has been visiting the North since Thursday. The rare trip — which represented the highest-level visit to the North in a year — was seen as an indication Pyongyang has not abandoned the disarmament pact.

Nuclear envoy Hwang Joon-kook and his team visited the North's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon on Friday. They will hold talks with North Korean officials through Monday before returning home, said presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye.

The two Koreas have been separated one of the world's most heavily armed borders since a three-year war ended in a truce in 1953.

Ties warmed significantly following the first-ever summit of their leaders in 2000, but the reconciliation process came to a halt after Seoul's conservative, pro-U.S. President Lee came to power last year.

Israel unilaterally halts fire as rockets persist

By IBRAHIM BARZAK and AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writers

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on Sunday meant to end three devastating weeks of war against Hamas militants, but just hours later militants fired salvos of rockets into southern Israel.

The violence that threatened the hours-old truce came even as a slew of foreign leaders headed for Egypt to try to cement the cease-fire.

No one was injured by the 10 rockets that struck southern Israel. But shortly afterward, Gaza security officials in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun reported an airstrike that wounded a woman and her child. After the first volley hit the rocket-scarred town of Sderot, Israeli aircraft hit the rocket squad that fired it, the military said.

Hamas rulers have said they would not respect any truce until Israel pulls out of Gaza and in another incident after the truce took hold, militants fired small arms at an infantry patrol, which directed artillery and aircraft to strike back, the military said.

"Israel's decision allows it to respond and renew fire at our enemies, the different terror organizations in the Gaza Strip, as long as they continue attacking," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the start of the weekly Cabinet session.

"This morning some of them continued their fire, provoking what we had warned of," Olmert said. "This cease-fire is fragile and we must examine it minute by minute, hour by hour."

Government spokesman Mark Regev would not say what level of violence would provoke Israel to call off the cease-fire.

In Gaza, people loaded vans and donkey carts with mattresses and began venturing back to their homes to see what was left standing after the punishing air and ground assault the tiny seaside territory endured. Bulldozers began shoving aside rubble in Gaza City, the territory's biggest population center, to clear a path for cars while medical workers sifting through mounds of concrete discovered dozens of bodies in the debris.

The cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday local time after three weeks of fighting that killed some 1,200 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and United Nations officials. At least 13 Israelis also died, according to the government.

Israel stopped its offensive before reaching a long-term solution to the problem of arms smuggling into Gaza, one of the war's declared aims. And Israel's insistence on keeping soldiers in Gaza raised the prospect of a stalemate with the territory's rulers.

The cease-fire went into effect just days ahead of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration Tuesday. Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration welcomed Israel's decision and a summit set for later Sunday in Egypt is meant to give international backing to the truce.

Leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic — which holds the rotating European Union presidency — are expected to attend along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon.

Ban welcomed the Israeli move and called on Hamas to stop its rocket fire. "Urgent humanitarian access for the people of Gaza is the immediate priority," he said, declaring that "the United Nations is ready to act."

It was not immediately clear whether Israel would send a representative to the meeting in Egypt, and Hamas, shunned widely as a terrorist organization, has not been invited.

In announcing the truce late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would withhold fire after achieving its goals and more.

"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," Olmert said.

If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us," Olmert said. If not, Israel "will continue to act to defend our residents."

In Gaza, people began to take stock of the devastation. The Shahadeh family loaded mattresses into the trunk of a car in Gaza City, preparing to return to their home in the hard-hit northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

"I've been told that the devils have left," said Riyadh Shahadeh, referring to the Israelis. "I'm going back to see how I'm going to start again. I don't know what happened to my house. ... I am going back there with a heart full of fear because I am not sure if the area is secure or not, but I have no other option."

In the southern town of Rafah, where Israel bombed dozens of smuggling tunnels, construction worker Abdel Ibn-Taha said he was very happy about the truce. "We're tired out," he said.

Schools in southern Israel remained closed in anticipation of possible rocket fire. Shortly before the rocket volley Sunday, the head of the Parents Association in the border town of Sderot, Batya Katar, said she was disappointed with the unilateral nature of the truce and the fact that Israel did not reach an agreement directly with Hamas, which Israel shuns.

"It's an offensive that ended without achieving its aims," Katar said. "All the weapons went through Egypt. What's happened there?"

Israel apparently reasons that the two-phase truce would give it ammunition against its international critics: Should Hamas continue to attack, then Israel would be able to resume its offensive after having tried to end it. It was not immediately clear how many rockets would have to fall to provoke an Israeli military response.

Hamas, which rejects Israel's existence, violently seized control of Gaza in June 2007, provoking a harsh Israeli blockade that has deepened the destitution in the territory of 1.4 million Palestinians. The Israeli war did not loosen Hamas' grip on Gaza, and the group vowed that a unilateral cease-fire was not enough to end the Islamic movement's resistance.

"The occupier must halt his fire immediately and withdraw from our land and lift his blockade and open all crossings and we will not accept any one Zionist soldier on our land, regardless of the price that it costs," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

More moderate Palestinians also reacted with skepticism to Israel's two-phase truce and called on world leaders attending the Egypt summit to press Israel to pull out its troops immediately.

"This is an important and necessary event but it's insufficient," said Abbas, Hamas' bitter rival and the top leader in the West Bank, the larger of the two Palestinian territories. "There should be a comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a lifting of the siege and a reopening of crossings" to aid, he said.

Egypt to host international Gaza summit Sunday

by Alain Navarro

CAIRO, (AFP) – Egypt will host an international summit on Sunday attended by several European leaders and UN chief Ban Ki-Moon, to seek a lasting truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The meeting will take place on the day that Israel unilaterally began a ceasefire after a 22-day offensive against the impoverished Hamas-run enclave.

More than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched the operation on December 27 in a move to halt rocket fire on southern Israel.

Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Jordan will be represented at the meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian government official, who requested anonymity, told AFP on Saturday.

In Paris, the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he will co-chair the summit along with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, who has sought to broker an end to the fighting under a truce plan.

The respective offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose country has played a mediation role in the conflict, said they would attend.

Merkel and Sarkozy both said they will go to Israel after the meeting to visit Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In London, Downing Street declined to confirm that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown would be among the participants in Sharm el-Sheikh.

But the Italian government said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will attend the summit before heading to Israel for talks with Israeli authorities.

Ban Ki-moon, who is on a tour of the region to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, also confirmed his participation.

"Tomorrow, I go to Damascus, Syria and then to Sharm el-Sheikh to attend a summit meeting to be convened by President Mubarak of Egypt on the Gaza situation," he told a press conference in Beirut.

He condemned as "outrageous" the bombing by the Israeli military of a UN-run school in the Gaza Strip in which two people were killed.

The Egyptian official said Jordan would be represented by King Abdullah II.

A Turkish government official said President Abdullah Gul will take part, although the invitation was extended to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is unable to go due a previously scheduled visit to Brussels.

Diplomatic sources said earlier that Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was invited but would not attend as he would instead hold talks with Mubarak in Cairo late Saturday.

After the meeting, Mubarak is to travel to Kuwait on Monday for an Arab summit on the Gaza crisis that is expected to highlight divisions between participating states over how to end the conflict.

Mubarak last week presented a three-point proposal to end Israel's offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The initiative called for an immediate ceasefire and allowing humanitarian aid into the impoverished enclave as well as ending arms smuggling between Egypt and Gaza.

The Egyptian leader on Saturday again called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, as Hamas vowed to fight on if its terms for a truce were not met.

Mubarak said Egypt "will continue its efforts as soon as there is a ceasefire to restore the truce and lift the blockade" imposed by Israel on crossing points into Gaza.

Egypt brokered a six months truce between Israel Hamas which expired last month.

Israel, Hamas hold fire for now in Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel ceased fire in the Gaza Strip on Sunday after declaring victory in its three-week offensive but Hamas guerrillas said the war that has cost 1,200 Palestinian lives would go on.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak invited European leaders to a hastily-called summit to try to bolster the unilateral truce although Israel had sidestepped Cairo's efforts to achieve a negotiated end to the hostilities with Hamas.

The racket of explosions and gunfire of the past 22 days went silent in Hamas-ruled Gaza after the Israeli ceasefire went into effect at 2 a.m. (7 p.m. ET).

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in a televised address on Saturday that Hamas had been "badly beaten" in the offensive, launched before a February election to end Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel that were undermining support for the governing coalition.

"Conditions have been created whereby the goals set at the launch of the operation have been more than fully achieved," Olmert said.

Gaza's Islamist rulers said they would keep firing rockets at Israel until it withdrew its troops and ended its trade blockade on the coastal enclave.

"These constitute acts of war so this won't mean an end to resistance," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

But there were no reports of rockets fired at Israel in the hours after the ceasefire began, though several were launched shortly after Olmert's announcement.

Olmert said Israel's troops would remain in place and hit back if the Palestinians tried to fight on.

"If our enemies decide the blows they've been dealt are not sufficient and they are interested in continuing the fight, Israel will be prepared for such and feel free to continue to react with force."

SHORT-NOTICE SUMMIT

Mubarak invited European leaders to a short-notice summit on Sunday to find ways to bolster the truce and ease the plight of civilians crammed into the 45-km (28-mile) sliver of Gaza coast.

Mubarak will host Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday, along with the leaders of France, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Italy and Spain.

Olmert cited internationally backed understandings with Egypt, Gaza's southern neighbor, on preventing Hamas from rearming through smuggling tunnels as a reason behind Israel's decision to call off its attacks.

U.N. Secretary General Ban welcomed the Israeli ceasefire but also urged it to pull out its forces from Gaza rapidly.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had spoken up for what Israel saw as its right to self-defense despite the civilian casualties, said she hoped for a durable ceasefire and a long-term settlement for the problems of Gaza.

Rice and President George W. Bush are stepping down and many analysts believe Israel, eager for smooth relations from the outset with the new president, has been keen to end the fighting before Barack Obama takes over the White House on Tuesday.

Israel launched air strikes on the Gaza Strip on December 27 and ground troops pushed into the enclave a week later, saying its main aim was an end to the rocket fire that had killed 18 people in Israel over the previous eight years.

Without an accord with Hamas, diplomats said they feared Israel would let only a trickle of goods into Gaza, hampering reconstruction and creating more hardship for its people.

"So long as there is no agreement on the crossings, I frankly cannot see the end to the hostilities," said Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was Israel's left-leaning Labor foreign minister when peace talks with the Palestinians collapsed in 2001.

The road ahead for the Obama administration in promoting a peace settlement that has eluded Israelis and Palestinians for the 60 years since Israel was established remains bumpy.

Hamas, which won a parliamentary election in 2006 and seized Gaza from Abbas's forces a year later, is shunned by the West but remains a popular force in both Gaza and the West Bank.

It is unclear what effect this month's war will have on the division between the Palestinians factions. Without an end to the bitter rift between Hamas and Abbas, a deal with Israel on establishing a Palestinian state still seems distant to many.

MANY IN GAZA DESPERATE

After the deaths of perhaps more than 700 civilians in the Israeli offensive, many of Gaza's 1.5 million people are desperate for a respite.

Most of those, their nerves shredded and sleepless with fear and bereavement, just want the war to be over.

"We do not care how, we want a ceasefire. We want to go back to our homes. Our children need to go back to sleep in their beds," said Ali Hassan, 34 and a father of five, in Gaza city.

Figures from an independent Palestinian human rights group put the number of civilians killed in three weeks of aerial bombardment and a two-week-long ground offensive backed by tanks and artillery at over 700. Hundreds of fighters have also died.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed.

Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said some 5,300 wounded had been treated, many at chaotic, sanctions-hit hospitals. It put the death toll to Saturday at 1,206, including 410 children.

Of these, two young boys were killed early on Saturday at a United Nations-run school where hundreds of people had taken refuge. U.N. officials called for war crimes inquiries.

Israel accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians and says its troops do all they can to avoid hitting non-combatants in a territory where half the population is aged under 18.

Olmert said he apologized for the suffering of the innocent, and Israel announced plans to open a clinic Sunday at the Erez Crossing with Gaza to treat the wounded.

Israel implements unilateral Gaza cease-fire

By MATTI FRIEDMAN and IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writers

JERUSALEM – Israel implemented a unilateral cease-fire early Sunday in its 22-day offensive that turned Gaza neighborhoods into battlegrounds and dealt a stinging blow to the Islamic militants of Hamas. But Israeli troops will stay in the Palestinian territory for now and Hamas threatened to keep fighting until they leave.

In announcing the cease-fire late Saturday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had achieved its goals and more.

"Hamas was hit hard, in its military arms and in its government institutions. Its leaders are in hiding and many of its men have been killed," Olmert said.

Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 to stop years of rocket fire from Gaza at southern Israeli towns. But the rockets did not stop coming throughout the assault. Militants fired about 30 rockets into Israel on Saturday, eight of them around the time Olmert spoke. There was no rocket fire in the first four hours after the truce went into effect, the Israeli military said.

More than 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, about half of them civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. officials. At least 13 Israelis have also been killed, according to the Israeli government.

According to Olmert's statement, the cease-fire went into effect at 2 a.m. local time (7 p.m. EST). The military warned in a statement early Sunday that attacks on soldiers or civilians "will be met with a harsh response."

If Hamas holds its fire, the military "will weigh pulling out of Gaza at a time that befits us," Olmert said. If not, Israel "will continue to act to defend our residents."

Israel's insistence on keeping troops in Gaza raises the specter of a stalemate with Hamas, which has insisted that it will not respect any cease-fire until Israel pulls out of the territory, with a population of 1.4 million.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum in Gaza said a unilateral cease-fire was not enough to end Hamas' resistance — echoing the stance taken earlier by Hamas leaders in exile.

"The occupier must halt his fire immediately and withdraw from our land and lift his blockade and open all crossings and we will not accept any one Zionist soldier on our land, regardless of the price that it costs," Barhoum said.

In the hours leading up to the vote by the 12-member Security Cabinet, and even as they met, Israel kept bombarding Gaza.

Earlier Saturday in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, Israeli shells struck a U.N. school where 1,600 people had sought shelter. One shell scored a direct hit on the top floor of the three-story building, killing two boys, U.N. officials said.

Gaza militants launched eight rockets into Israel around the time Olmert announced the cease-fire, the Israeli military said. There were no reports of casualties. Five long-range Grad rockets exploded near the city of Beersheba in the hour after Olmert's televised address, Israel Radio reported.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni indicated that Israel would renew its offensive if Hamas militants continued to fire rockets at Israel.

"This campaign is not a one-time event," she said in an interview with the Israeli YNet news Web site. "The test will be the day after. That is the test of deterrence."

Palestinians reacted with skepticism and called on world leaders attending a summit planned for Sunday in Egypt to put pressure on Israel to withdraw immediately.

"We had hoped that the Israeli announcement would be matched by total cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza," said Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival. "I am afraid that the presence of the Israeli forces in Gaza means that the cease fire will not stand."

The cease-fire vote comes just days ahead of Barack Obama's inauguration as president on Tuesday. Outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration welcomed Israel's decision and said the ultimate goal remains a lasting truce that is fully respected and will return peace to Gaza.

The summit set for Sunday in Egypt is meant to give international backing to the cease-fire. Leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Italy, Turkey and the Czech Republic — which holds the rotating EU presidency — are expected to attend along with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel would send a representative, and Hamas has not been invited.

Ban welcomed Israel's move and called on Hamas to stop its rocket fire. He said "urgent humanitarian access for the people of Gaza is the immediate priority," and "the United Nations is ready to act."

During its campaign, Israel said it destroyed roughly 60 percent of the hundreds of tunnels under the eight-mile Egypt-Gaza border.

As it seeks a longer-term solution, Israel signed a deal Friday in Washington in which the United States agreed to commit detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations to monitor Gaza's land and sea borders.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Saturday that his country would not be bound by the agreement. Egypt's cooperation is essential if the smuggling is to be stopped.

As Israel's Security Cabinet met Saturday evening, airstrikes continued. Walls shook and windows trembled in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah as fighter jets soared above head, apparently focusing their missiles on the no man's land with Egypt where many suspected smuggling tunnels lie.

But all was quiet after Olmert's announcement for the first time in three weeks, residents said, giving them a chance to sleep.

A total of 13 Palestinians were killed in battles throughout Gaza Saturday, Palestinian medics said.

John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza, condemned the attack on Beit Lahiya that killed the two boys — the latest in a series of Israeli shellings that have struck U.N. installations.

"The question that has to be asked is for all those children and all those innocent people who have been killed in this conflict. Were they war crimes? Were they war crimes that resulted in the deaths of the innocents during this conflict? That question has to be answered," he said.

The Israeli army said it was launching a high-level investigation into the shelling, as well as four other attacks that hit civilian targets, including the U.N. headquarters in Gaza. The army investigation also includes the shelling of a hospital, a media center and the home of a well-known doctor.