The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Gaza City

Israel said it will halt bombing the Gaza Strip for three hours every day beginning on Wednesday, as diplomatic efforts sped up to end the war that has killed at least 666 Palestinians.

"It was decided to suspend bombings between 1 and 4 o'clock (1100 GMT and 1400 GMT) every day starting today," army spokeswoman Avital Liebovich told AFP.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was mulling an invitation from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to visit Cairo on Wednesday for urgent talks on the 12-day-old assault on Hamas that has sparked protests worldwide.

Olmert's spokesman told AFP the premier had not yet decided whether he would travel to Egypt to discuss security on the Egypt-Gaza border-an issue that Israel has repeatedly said would be key to ending its offensive.

"We will be putting out a statement shortly," he said.

Israel pressed deeper into Gaza Tuesday in its assault on Hamas. As the battle grew deadlier, calls for a cease-fire mounted as did outrage at Israel after two strikes outside United Nations schools killed at least 34 Gaza civilians.

Across the Arab world the conflict continues to tear at the rift between factions that extol resistance to Israel and the Western-friendly autocracies and monarchies that rule in the region. As anger at Israel grows, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas backers in Iran and Syria gain more currency on the street at the expense of American allies: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. And this shifting tide of support could have an impact on US policy in the Middle East for decades. "This conflict, like the July [2006 Hezbollah-Israel] war, is one in which the stakes are very high for both sides," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese expert on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. "I would expect now an even-deeper polarization in the region."

As with the 2006 Lebanon war, the Gaza conflict suggests that the most dynamic forces at play in the modern Middle East are not states but the powerful militant organizations - Hezbollah and Hamas - that have emerged and evolved over the past two decades.

"These are very powerful, legitimate, and perplexing actors for the world to deal with. The really important actors are the militant nationalist, Islamist resistance groups," says Rami Khouri, director of the Issam Fares Center of Lebanon at the American University of Beirut.

These divisions between anti-Israeli factions and US allies were first thrown into sharp relief in July 2006 when Hezbollah fought the Israeli army to a surprising standstill in south Lebanon. At the onset of that conflict, Saudi Arabia implicitly accused Hezbollah and its backer Iran of "uncalculated adventures," an unusually stinging rebuke.

Israel's security cabinet was due to meet later on Wednesday when "the ministers will discuss military and diplomatic questions linked to the operation," the spokesman said.

Egypt "invites the Israelis and Palestinians for an urgent meeting to reach arrangements and guarantees that would not allow the repeat of the current escalation," Mubarak said late on Tuesday after talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Such guarantees would include "securing the borders andt opening of the border crossings and lifting the siege," said the veteran Middle East mediator who had brokered a six-month truce between Israel and Hamas last year.

Sarkozy said Israel was invited "to come and discuss the matter of border security" and that "I have very precise elements that allow me to say that an Israeli delegation will meet an Egyptian delegation to discuss the matter of security."

Israel's main ally the United States has backed efforts by Mubarak to secure a halt to one of Israel's deadliest-ever offensives in Gaza, a Palestinian enclave run by the Islamist Hamas movement for a year and a half.

"We are pleased by and wish to commend the statement of president-the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told an emergency UN Security Council session in New York on Tuesday, according to a State Department transcript.

On the ground in Gaza, the Israeli military attacks on Hamas targets entered their 12th day, with some 30 air strikes overnight targetting rocket launching sites and groups of gunmen across the territory, an army spokesman said.

"Navy and artillery also fired at targets and at groups of gunmen, mostly in the north," he said.

Dozens of Israeli tanks and bulldozers rolled out of the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis after operating there for around 24 hours, witnesses said.

An air strike killed a Palestinian gunman and wounded three in Gaza City's Zeitun neighbourhood, where some of the heaviest fighting has occurred since Israeli troops invaded the crowded coastal strip on Saturday, medics said.

Since Israel unleashed its Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza on December 27, at least 666 Palestinians have been killed, including 215 children, and more than 2,950 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

Israeli strikes in Gaza on Tuesday hit near three UN-run schools that killed at least 48 people, prompting calls for an investigation from the UN and escalating calls for an immediate ceasefire.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply dismayed" by the strikes on the schools and called them "totally unacceptable."

The army said that its investigation into the deadliest strike, on a school in Jabaliya found that militants had fired at Israeli forces from within the school and that Hamas "terror operatives" were among the dozens of people killed in the strike.

The UN on Wednesday denied the Israeli army allegations.

"Following an initial investigation, we are 99.9 percent sure that there were no militants or militant activities in the school and the school compound," Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, told AFP.

"We are calling for an independent investigation to establish the facts," he said. "If the rules of war had been broken those found guilty must be brought to justice."

Protests against Israel have spiralled worldwide amid the Gaza war.

Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to attack Israeli and Western targets in revenge for the offensive while Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador. In retaliation, Israel on Wednesday expelled Caracas's top diplomat in the Jewish state.

There has been mounting international concern about the welfare of the 1.5 million people who live in the Gaza Strip, one of the world's most densely populated territories where the vast majority of the population depends on foreign aid.

Israel has denied there is a humanitarian crisis, but Olmert's office announced that the Jewish state would open a "humanitarian corridor" into the territory.

"This involves opening up geographical areas for limited periods of time during which the population will be able to receive the aid and stock up," his office said.

But in this war between Israel and an Islamist militant group, the verbal barbs have been sharper. The Saudis, while providing humanitarian aid to Gazans, have implicitly blamed Hamas for the offensive, saying that the "massacre would not have happened if the Palestinian people were united behind one leadership."

On the other side, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah charged the Sunni Egyptian regime of conspiring with Israel and urged Egyptians "to take the streets in their millions."

"Can the Egyptian police kill millions of Egyptians? No, they cannot," he said.

This was an unprecedented call from the politically astute leader who has always been wary of aggravating Sunni-Shiite tensions.

"The gloves have come off and Hezbollah is no longer afraid of antagonizing the Sunnis," says Ms. Saad-Ghorayeb.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Aboul-Gheit shot back at Sheikh Nasrallah, saying that Hezbollah had destroyed Lebanon in 2006 and accused him of having "insulted the Egyptian people."

"I found Nasrallah's comments to be objectionable, but I also found them to be ineffective because they had absolutely no effect on the ground," says Nabil Fahmy, an Egyptian diplomat and former ambassador to Washington. "What has had more of an effect in galvanizing the Egyptian people, understandably, is the bombing itself."

The Israeli offensive has triggered demonstrations in Europe and the Arab world. While Europeans have largely directed their protests at the Israeli government, Middle Easterners are pointing their ire at Egypt, with thousands marching on Egyptian embassies in Beirut and Amman, Jordan.

But as the war drags on, unease is growing among so-called Arab "moderates." Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan have become more vocal in their denunciations of Israel's excessive military force. King Abdullah of Jordan has sacked his intelligence chief in what may be a move related to the Gaza crisis. Last week he and his wife, Queen Rania, donated blood for Palestinians in Gaza.

The violence hastened steps Tuesday to reach a cease-fire arrangement and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the UN to consult with Arab officials.

Syria, which hosts Hamas's leadership, also has been drawn into the diplomatic moves with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, holding talks Tuesday with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Damascus as part of a tour with European officials.

Syria is in an unusual position. It is the sole Arab state member of the so-called "resistance front," it continues to maintain an alliance with non-Arab Iran, backs Hezbollah and Hamas, and has acted to scuttle US policy gains in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

Still, its relations with Europe have thawed lately and there are hints of a renewed dialogue with the US under President-elect Barack Obama's administration. On the other hand, Syria's ties with Saudi Arabia and Egypt have worsened.

"The Syrians have strong reason to believe that Hamas will not be defeated in this war, and on the contrary, will score a point for its allies, vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who are loudly critical of Hamas today," says Sami Moubayed, a Syrian political analyst. "It's not on Syria's agenda to make up with either Egypt or Saudi Arabia, given their positions on the current war. Syria is sticking by its allies and continuing to build-bridges with Europe."

But it is the powerful nonstate actors of Hezbollah and Hamas that draw most attention. Nasrallah's televised addresses are watched avidly by friends and foes alike for clues on what his enigmatic organization might do next. Hezbollah and its allies are in a strong position to triumph at the polls in June to form a new parliamentary majority and government. Hamas, having won elections in 2006, is the ruling authority in Gaza.

But with power comes responsibility. Hezbollah has refrained so far from coming to the assistance of its ally Hamas by opening up a new front in northern Israel largely because of the domestic political backlash such a move would invoke. Hamas, too, even if it emerges from this war claiming victory, may find its military options curtailed.

"In the short term, there will be a perception that they [Hamas] are stronger and that countries that supported them are stronger," says Mr. Fahmy, the Egyptian diplomat. "But if whoever is controlling Gaza a few months down the line cannot give people a better lifestyle … then I don't think they will continue to be heroes."