Gaza Deaths Spur Calls for Cease-Fire

Mourners today buried the 11 victims of an Israeli air strike Sunday, the single deadliest incident since the escalation between Hamas and Israel began Wednesday. Among the dead were nine members of the Daloo family, killed when an Israeli warplane targeted their home in Gaza City while trying to kill a Hamas rocket maker, whose fate is unknown.

Palestinian deaths climbed to more than 90 Monday when four more, including two children, were killed in a strike on a sports stadium the Israel Defense Forces said was being used to launch rockets. Gaza health officials said half of those killed were children, women or elderly men.

Israel carried out 80 air strikes this morning, down from previous morning totals. There were just 16 militant rocket launches, the Israeli military said, also a relatively low tally. The Israel Defense Forces said that since Wednesday, when Hamas' top military commander was assassinated by Israel, around 1,100 strikes had been carried out in Gaza while militants have launched about 1,000 rockets.

Sunday proved to be one the deadliest days of what Israel has called "Operation Pillar of Defense" with at least 23 people reported killed. Of those, at least 14 were women and children, according to a Gaza health official. The Israel Defense Forces told ABC News it was targeting Hamas rocket maker Yehiya Bia, who lives near the Daloo family in a densely populated Gaza neighborhood and has not been accounted for.

Rescue workers worked frantically this morning looking for any survivors in the rubble of the attack.

Israel shifted its tactics this weekend from striking rocket arsenals and firing positions to targeting the homes of senior Hamas commanders and the offices of Hamas politicians in Gaza. Doing so brought the violence into Gaza's most densely populated areas.

Israel also hit two high-rise buildings Sunday that house the offices of Hamas and international media outlets, injuring at least six journalists.

Meanwhile, militant rockets continued to rain down on Israel Sunday. More than 100 rockets were fired Sunday with 76 landing in Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The military said that more than 500 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel. More than 300 have been intercepted by Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system.

Three Israeli civilians died from militant rocket fire in one attack Thursday and dozens have been wounded.

The pace of diplomacy has stepped up as civilian casualties in Gaza continue to rise. An Israeli envoy is in Cairo to talk with Egyptian officials but Hamas sources say no progress has been made.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to arrive later today, and has called for an immediate cease-fire. Leaders of Qatar, Turkey and Hamas, as well as an Israeli envoy, are working toward a cease-fire proposal.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will discuss the crisis with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday on the sidelines of the Asean meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Gilad Sharon, son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, took to the Jerusalem Post op-ed page today to call for Israel to "flatten all of Gaza."

"There is no middle path here, either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip," he wrote.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened cabinet meetings in Jerusalem Sunday, saying, Israel is "prepared to significantly expand the operation."

While speaking in Bangkok, President Obama Sunday said he was in touch with players across the region in hopes of halting the fighting. While defending Israel's right to defend itself against the rocket fire, he also warned of the risks the Jewish state would take if it were to expand its air assault into a ground war.

"If we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza, the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future," Obama said.

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Israel says prefers diplomacy over Gaza invasion option

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed dozens of targets in Gaza on Monday and said that while it was prepared to step up its offensive by sending in troops, it preferred a diplomatic solution that would end Palestinian rocket fire from the enclave.

As international pressure mounted for a truce, mediator Egypt said a deal to end the fighting could be close.

Twelve Palestinian civilians and four fighters were killed in the air strikes, bringing the Gaza death toll since fighting began on Wednesday to 90, more than half of them non-combatants, local officials said. Three Israeli civilians have been killed.

After an overnight lull, militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip fired 45 rockets at southern Israel, causing no casualties, police said. One damaged a school, but it was closed at the time.

The deaths of 11 Palestinian civilians - nine from one family - in an air strike on Sunday - drew more international calls for an end to six days of hostilities and could test Western support for an offensive Israel billed as self-defense after years of cross-border rocket attacks.

Israel's military did not immediately comment on a report in the liberal Haaretz newspaper that it had mistakenly fired on the Dalu family home, where the dead spanned four generations, while trying to kill a Hamas rocketry chief.

Echoes of explosions in Gaza mixed with cries of grief and defiant chants of "God is greatest" at the funeral of the four children and five women killed in the attack that flattened the three-storey house. Their bodies were wrapped in Palestinian and Hamas flags and thousands turned out to mourn them.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Cairo to weigh in on ceasefire efforts led by Egypt, which borders both Israel and Gaza and whose Muslim Brotherhood-rooted government has been hosting leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction in the Palestinian enclave.

Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had also been to Cairo for the truce talks. A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government declined comment on the matter.

"Israel is prepared and has taken steps, and is ready for a ground incursion which will deal severely with the Hamas military machine," a senior official close to Netanyahu told Reuters.

But he added: "We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation would no longer be required. If diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces."

The official's language echoed that of U.S. President Barack Obama, who said on Sunday it would be "preferable" to avoid a move into Gaza. Obama also said Israel had a right to self-defense and no country would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens.

Egyptian negotiators could be close to achieving a deal between Israel and the Palestinians to stop the fighting could be close, the Egyptian prime minister said.

"I think we are close, but the nature of this kind of negotiation, (means) it is very difficult to predict," Hisham Kandil said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.

Egypt's foreign minister is expected to visit Gaza on Tuesday with a delegation of Arab ministers to express solidarity with the Palestinians.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off Gaza border and military convoys moved on roads in the area.

Israel has also authorized the call-up of 75,000 military reservists, so far mobilizing around half that number.

WORLD CONCERN

The Gaza fighting has stoked the worries of world powers watching an already combustible region.

In the absence of any prospect of permanent peace between Israel and Hamas and other Islamist factions, mediated deals for each to hold fire unilaterally have been the only formula for stemming bloodshed in the past. But both sides now placed the onus on the other.

Izzat Risheq, aide to Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, wrote on Facebook that Hamas would enter a truce only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".

Listing Israel's terms, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Yaalon also said Israel wanted an end to Gaza guerrilla activity in the neighboring Egyptian Sinai, a desert peninsula where lawlessness has spread during Cairo's political crises.

Israel bombed some 80 sites in Gaza overnight, the military said, adding in a statement that targets included "underground rocket launching sites, terror tunnels and training bases" as well as "buildings owned by senior terrorist operatives".

Netanyahu has said he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in Gaza. At least 22 of the Gaza fatalities have been children, medical officials said.

Before leaving for Cairo, Ban urged Israel and the Palestinians to cooperate with all Egyptian-led efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire.

But a big rocket strike might be enough for Netanyahu to give a green light for a Gaza invasion, despite the political risks of heavy casualties before a January election he is favored to win.

Although 84 percent of Israelis supported the current Gaza assault, according to a Haaretz poll, only 30 percent wanted an invasion. Nineteen percent wanted their government to work on securing a truce soon.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedevilled Israeli border towns for years.

The rockets now have greater range, becoming a strategic weapon for Gaza's otherwise massively outgunned militants. Several projectiles have targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. None hit the two cities and some of the rockets were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome interceptor system.

As a precaution against the rocket interceptions endangering nearby Ben-Gurion International Airport, civil aviation authorities said on Monday new flight paths were being used.

There was no indication takeoffs and landings at Ben-Gurion had been affected.

Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.

Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006 but a year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas the Islamist group seized control of Gaza in a brief and bloody civil war with forces loyal to Abbas.

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Australia imposes two-year ban on supertrawlers

SYDNEY: Australia banned supertrawlers fishing in its southern waters for two years on Monday, saying there was uncertainty about the impact of such large vessels on species such as dolphins and seals.

Environment Minister Tony Burke in September blocked the 9,500-tonne, 143-metre (469-foot) Abel Tasman from operating for 60 days until more scientific research was completed.

The Dutch-owned vessel, previously known as the Margiris, planned to trawl off Tasmania, but environmental campaign group Greenpeace voiced fears its haul could include threatened species in its by-catch and deplete fish stocks.

On Monday Burke extended the ban - which covers the Small Pelagic Fishery running along the country's southern coast from near Perth in the west almost to the Queensland border in the east - for the maximum 24 months allowed.

"I've signed off on there being a two-year ban... for supertrawlers to be operating in our waters," he told reporters in Canberra.

So-called "supertrawlers" are designed to store a much larger amount of fish on board than ordinary trawlers, so that they can remain at sea for much longer periods before having to return to port.

Burke said while scientists believed the Abel Tasman would not impact on all species adversely, there were question marks over some, including seals and dolphins. An expert panel will carry out an assessment.

"The challenge here has always been, a vessel of this nature had never been used in Australian waters," he said.

"It did carry additional environmental challenges where on a number of occasions the information that I sought was not available. There was significant uncertainty about what the environmental consequence will be."

Fisheries authorities have dismissed concerns about over-fishing, saying the trawler would only be allowed to catch 10 percent of available fish and would have little, if any, impact on the broader ecosystem.

- AFP/de

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Yeddyurappa apologizes to LK Advani

DAVANAGERE: A day after BJP went offensive against him, former chief minister BS Yeddyrappa went a step backward by apologizing to BJP patriarch LK Advani.

Yeddyurappa, who is all set to quit the party, apologized to Advani after participating 'kalasarohana' of Sri Ranganatha swamy temple at Kunkova village, Honnali taluk in Davanagere district on Monday.

Yeddyurappa on Saturday made anti-Advani slogans by stating "down down Advani", today he retracted and maintained that it was it was "slip of the tongue" and accidently spelt Advani name while making anti-Ananth Kumar slogans.

"Both Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani are like my two eyes. I should not have made remarks against Advani. It's a big mistake and I regret for it. I was upset on Ananth Kumar as he was responsible for my down fall by bad mouthing against me with Advani. Accidently Advani's name was spelt along while making anti-Kumar statement. I apologize for it," Yeddyurappa told reporters.

Yeddyurappa in the same district had said that when he was in jail for 24-days last year, Advani said that the BJP government led by him was number one in corruption in the country, which hurt him badly. "Advani, who had visited Bangalore when I was in power, had leveled corruption charges against me. When I was in jail, Advani let me down," the former CM said.

He also leveled charges against Kumar alleging that he had sold the government-owned hotel Ashok in Bangalore for just Rs 1,000 crore and also was involved in Rs 18,000 crore HUDCO scam.

Yeddyurappa's statement was taken seriously by the BJP. Although the party remained silent against Lingayat leader, despite his series of BJP bashing, it officially for the first time launched attack on him on Sunday by stating the party came to power on ideology, not by efforts of any individual.

Directed against Yeddyurappa, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu said that people everywhere always support ideology, not individuals. "Even in Karnataka people will stand with," he said. Maintaining that BJP has given all the support to Yeddyurappa, Naidu said if Yeddyurappa wants to form his party it is his choice. Upset with BJP, the former CM is all set to launch Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) on December 9 at Haveri, about 350km from Bangalore.

Meanwhile state BJP president K S Eshwarappa in Bellary said the question of dissolving assembly would not arise at all as the BJP would complete its full term. "I don't see great number of BJP legislators or MPs joining KJP. Only handful of them might go. This any way won't affect functioning of the government. BJP government will complete its full term," he said. Attacking Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa in Chitradurga said that the former CM should know that he is just a MLA, not chief minister anymore and should follow protocol.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Rocket Fired at Tel Aviv, More Strikes in Gaza

Egyptian security officials say a senior Israeli official has arrived in Cairo for talks on reaching a cease-fire to end an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The officials said the official arrived at Cairo's airport and was immediately rushed away from the tarmac into talks. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity under security guidelines, did not identify the Israeli.

Israeli officials declined comment.

Egypt has been leading international efforts to broker a truce to end five days of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in Cairo, confirmed the Israeli's arrival.

He says there are "serious attempts to reach a cease-fire."

Shaath was headed to Gaza later Sunday to work on cease-fire efforts.

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion while also spelling out its conditions for a truce.

Palestinians launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day. The "Iron Dome" missile shield shot down two of the rockets fired toward Israel's biggest city but falling debris from the interception hit a car, which caught fire. Its driver was not hurt.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of the Gaza Strip, tanks, artillery and infantry massed in field encampments along the sandy border. Military convoys moved on roads in the area newly closed to civilian traffic.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

Palestinian officials said 56 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including 16 children, have been killed in small, densely populated Gaza since the Israeli offensive began, with hundreds wounded. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three civilians and wounding dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the military commander of the Islamist Hamas movement that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

AIR STRIKE ON MEDIA CENTRES

In air raids on Sunday, two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said. Eight journalists were wounded and facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News were damaged.

An employee of Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, local medics said.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity", and that journalists in the building had effectively been used as human shields by the group.

Three other attacks killed three children and wounded 14 other people, medical officials said, with heavy detonations regularly jolting the Mediterranean coastal enclave.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees".

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope", but that it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in Egypt on Monday for talks with Mursi, the foreign ministry in Cairo said. U.N. diplomats earlier said Ban was expected in Israel and Egypt this week to push for an end to the fighting.

Asked on Israel Radio about progress in the Cairo talks, Silvan Shalom, one of Netanyahu's deputies, said: "There are contacts, but they are currently far from being concluded."

Listing Israel's terms for ceasing fire, Moshe Yaalon, another deputy to the prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

SYRIAN FRONT

Israel's military also saw action along the northern frontier, firing into Syria on Saturday in what it said was a response to shooting aimed at its troops in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel's chief military spokesman, citing Arab media, said it appeared Syrian soldiers were killed in the incident.

There were no reported casualties on the Israeli side from the shootings, the third case this month of violence that has been seen as a spillover of battles between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and rebels trying to overthrow him.

Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said on Sky News that he and Prime Minister David Cameron "stressed to our Israeli counterparts that a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation".

Israel's cabinet decided on Friday to double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza campaign to 75,000. Some 31,000 soldiers have already been called up, the military said.

Netanyahu, in his comments at Sunday's cabinet session, said he had emphasized in telephone conversations with world leaders "the effort Israel is making to avoid harming civilians, while Hamas and the terrorist organizations are making every effort to hit civilian targets in Israel".

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the slender, impoverished territory, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

NETANYAHU IN RE-ELECTION BID

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through "de-escalation" and diplomacy, but also believed Israel had the right to self-defense.

A possible sweep into the Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion four years ago, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

The current flare-up around Gaza has fanned the fires of a Middle East ignited by a series of Arab uprisings and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One significant change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, which may narrow Israel's maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

On Saturday, Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Israel's Iron Dome missile interceptor system has destroyed more than 200 incoming rockets from Gaza in mid-air since Wednesday, saving Israeli towns and cities from potentially significant damage.

However, one rocket salvo unleashed on Sunday evaded Iron Dome and wounded two people when it hit a house in the coastal city of Ashkelon, police said.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and London bureau, Writing by Jeffrey Heller)

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Man arrested for alleged involvement in fatal hit-and-run

SINGAPORE: Police have arrested a 36-year-old truck driver for his alleged involvement in a fatal hit-and-run accident that resulted in the death of a 46-year-old cyclist.

The truck driver also had his licence suspended with immediate effect.

In a statement, police said on 17 November 2012, at about 6.45 pm, a man was cycling along the roundabout at Fort Road when he was hit by a vehicle. He died soon after.

Police said through extensive interviews and enquiries, the officers learned that a tipper truck was near the scene of the accident at that time.

They found the tipper truck at Sungei Kadut within four hours after the accident and arrested the driver.

- CNA/xq

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Gaza violence: India calls for direct Israel-Palestine talks

Israeli soldiers take cover as an Israeli missile is launched from the Iron Dome defence missile system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod in response to a rocket launched from the nearby Palestinian Gaza Strip on November 18, 2012. (AFP photo)

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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