WORLD> Middle East
Rockets from Lebanon hit Israel
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-08 16:26

One rocket punched a hole in the roof of a building in Nahariya that Israeli media said was a home for the elderly and was being evacuated.

"I have decided on two steps -- to send schoolchildren home and that people should remain in shelters," Nahariya Mayor Jackie Sabag said on Israel's Channel Two television.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said two people in northern Israel were slightly wounded and several were treated for shock after what police said were at least three rocket strikes.


Protesters display placards during a protest in front of the Israeli Embassy in Manila's financial district Makati January 8, 2009 in continuing protest against Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip. [Agencies]

In June 2007, Palestinians in Lebanon fired two rockets that landed near the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona.

Heavy Bombardment

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian man who tried to set fire to a gas station at a Jewish settlement, an Israeli rescue service said. Police confirmed the shooting but not the man's condition.

Residents in Gaza described the overnight bombardment to the east of the city as among the heaviest in the offensive. In the south of the territory tanks advanced closer to the town of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Although Israel pressed on with the offensive, it said it accepted the "principles" of a European-Egyptian ceasefire proposal. The United States urged Israel to study the plan.

Israel's assault resumed after a brief pause on Wednesday to help Gaza's inhabitants stock up on much-needed supplies.

Twenty Palestinians were killed on Wednesday, medics said, including three children in an air strike on a car. It took the total of Palestinian deaths since December 27 to at least 658 -- the bloodiest episode in decades of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

UN officials have said a quarter of the Palestinian dead were civilians, while other accounts put that proportion higher.

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Ten Israelis have died in the past 13 days, seven of them soldiers, including four killed by "friendly" fire.

With both George W. Bush's outgoing administration and President-elect Barack Obama speaking out on the need for peace, officials said Israel would send an envoy to Cairo to discuss how the Egyptian plan might be implemented.

That may take several days. In the meantime, Israeli military commanders appear determined to keep up the pressure on the ground, even if a decision on whether to launch a new phase by targeting militants in Gaza's urban centres was put off.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed Israel's concerns that a deal must achieve its goal of stopping the Hamas Islamists who rule Gaza from hitting Israel with rockets.

"It has to be a ceasefire that will not allow a return to the status quo," she said.

Hamas said it was looking at the Egyptian plan, brokered by France, which addresses Israel's demand that the militant group be prevented from rearming through smuggling tunnels from Egypt. The proposal also addresses Hamas's call for an end to Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.