Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

The new government taking power in Israel Tuesday supports expanded Jewish settlement in the West Bank and does not explicitly endorse an independent Palestinian state, a course that could put the country at odds with the Obama administration.

Western officials are also concerned about incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's choice for foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, whose proposal to put citizens to loyalty tests is widely seen as a racist attack on Israel's Arab minority.

Israel's Knesset, or parliament, was swearing in Netanyahu and his 28 ministers at a special session Tuesday evening. The new Cabinet is an unwieldy and heterogeneous group hailing from ultra-Orthodox parties, a hard-line religious party, a hawkish secular faction, and the centrist Labor Party, along with Netanyahu's Likud.

To placate his new partners and his allies, Netanyahu created new ministerial positions _ so many that parliament carpenters had to work overnight to enlarge the Cabinet's table.

Facing the prospect of a clash with the Obama administration, Netanyahu has been busy remodeling his own image in recent weeks.

The establishment of a Palestinian state is a key U.S. goal.

After an election campaign in which he roundly criticized the outgoing government's peace talks with the Palestinians, he has softened his position, bringing Labor into what otherwise would have been a hard-line coalition and saying he would pursue peace with the country's Arab neighbors. However, he has been vague about his vision for peace.

During the campaign, he said he would focus peace efforts on developing the Palestinian economy, while leaving key issues such as final borders and the dispute over control of Jerusalem for the future. Last week, however, he said he would be a "partner in peace" with the Palestinians and discuss core issues.

Israelis and Palestinians greeted the new government with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Some were uncertain exactly what to make of it.

"I don't know if it's good. It's hopeful. I don't know if it's right wing, I don't know if its left-wing. It's something different," said Monica Haber of Nokdim, a West Bank settlement.

Nokdim's most famous resident is Lieberman, whose appointment as foreign minister would have been unthinkable several months ago.

One of the country's most polarizing politicians, Lieberman centered his successful election campaign on a proposal, widely seen as anti-Arab, to strip the citizenship of people who do not swear loyalty to the Jewish state. Lieberman was able to leverage his Yisrael Beitenu Party's strong election performance into control of the foreign ministry and other senior portfolios in the coalition government.

Not everyone in Nokdim seemed thrilled with the new government. Moshe Hacohen said international pressure has traditionally limited conservative governments' ability to maneuver.

"It's best not to make a big deal about anything, and just to do what you have to do," he said.

Yariv Oppenheimer, who heads the Israeli group Peace Now, said he was certain peace activists would be busy during Netanyahu's term.

"The new Israeli government is one of the most right-wing governments that we have had here in Israel. ... Unfortunately, we think that as a peace movement we are going to have a lot of work in the upcoming years to protest against this government," he said.

He did grant that "sometimes in Israel the right-wing government is doing the opposite and making peace and compromise."

It was a Likud prime minister, Menachem Begin, who signed Israel's historic peace accord with Egypt, and another Likud prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who pulled Israeli settlers and troops out of Gaza unilaterally in 2005. After criticizing peace talks during the campaign, Netanyahu has now embraced them, though without saying he supports the creation of a Palestinian state.

Hamas, the Islamic group that took control of Gaza in 2007 and which remains officially dedicated to Israel's destruction, has said it sees no difference between Israeli governments. But Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said Tuesday that the new government will "increase the risk for the Palestinian people and the region."

"This racist and extreme government will lead the region from bad to worse," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu still hopes to persuade moderates to join his government as the deadline for forming a new coalition approaches, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Netanyahu prefers a broad coalition alongside moderate partners to his other option, a narrow and unstable coalition of hard-line parties that could find it difficult to govern and draw the displeasure of the international community by rejecting the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Netanyahu told Israel's ceremonial president that he has not given up on a partnership with moderates, despite signs that his strongest potential partner, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, remains opposed to joining the government. Livni, head of the centrist Kadima Party, says she will only serve in a government committed to seeking a final peace agreement with the Palestinians _ a demand Netanyahu rejects.

Netanyahu met President Shimon Peres late Monday to update him on his effort to form a coalition, launched after a strong showing by Netanyahu's Likud and other hard-line parties in a national election on Feb. 10. Since then, he has been negotiating with potential partners over a division of ministerial positions and the government's agenda.

The Likud captured 27 seats, meaning it needs to bring in other partners to control a majority in the 120-seat parliament. Netanyahu has until April 3 to complete the task.

Netanyahu "expressed hope for a unity government, and both Netanyahu and Peres expressed a strong desire to see that happen," Likud spokeswoman Dina Libster said.

Netanyahu can easily put together a narrow coalition of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. But he has said he would prefer to bring in other centrist parties to bring more stability to the government.

Netanyahu is concerned such a narrow hard-line coalition would be susceptible to unrealistic demands by the smaller partners, which could bring down the government if they're unhappy.

On Monday, Netanyahu's party initialed a coalition agreement with the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu faction, a tentative step that leaves open the possibility of changes if other parties join. Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the party, has drawn accusations of racism for a plan that would require Arab citizens of Israel to sign loyalty oaths or lose their citizenship. The coalition agreement would see Lieberman become foreign minister.

Such a government would also likely be opposed to withdrawing from West Bank land as part of a future peace deal with the Palestinians, setting Israel up for a clash with the Obama administration and alienating the sizable number of Israelis who voted for centrist parties.

Kadima and the center-left Labor Party have so far rejected Netanyahu's overtures, citing his refusal to support the creation of a Palestinian state. Livni also has demanded a "rotation" arrangement in which Netanyahu let her serve as prime minister for half of the government's four-year term, a condition Netanyahu has rejected.

Livni believes she should be prime minister since Kadima is the largest party, with 28 seats in parliament. But because of the overall strength of hard-line parties allied with Netanyahu, he was tapped by Peres to form the government and serve as Israel's next prime minister.

Netanyahu's government will replace the one headed by Ehud Olmert, who is stepping down to face a string of corruption charges.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised Tuesday to work with the incoming Israeli government, but delivered a clear message that could put her at odds with the country's next leader: Movement toward the establishment of a Palestinian state is "inescapable."

At the same time, Clinton said she would not dictate orders to Israel, saying the Jewish state would determine its interests. In her first visit to the region as secretary of state, she also pledged "unrelenting" support for Israel's security.

Prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu opposes Palestinian statehood and has been critical of peace talks. But after meeting Clinton, he said the two had "found a common language."

At a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni earlier in the day, Clinton also said the U.S. would soon send two envoys to Syria for "preliminary conversations." It was the most significant sign yet that the Obama administration is ready to mend relations with the Damascus regime. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador in 2005, accusing Syria of supporting terrorism.

"We have no way to predict what the future with our relations concerning Syria might be," Clinton said. "There has to be some perceived benefit of doing so for the United States and our allies and our shared values."

Clinton lamented that President Barack Obama's attempts to reach out to Syrian ally Iran have so far been unsuccessful. The U.S. and Israel accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons and supporting anti-Israel militant groups.

Clinton, seeking to calm her Israeli hosts, said diplomacy should not be confused with softness.

"When we talk about engagement with Iran, do not be in any way confused, our goal remains the same: to dissuade and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and continuing to fund terrorism," she said. "Whatever we do will be done thoughtfully in consultation with our friends and Israel, most particularly Israel."

Senior Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, told Clinton that Israel does not oppose Washington's overtures to Iran. However, they said they were skeptical about Iran's intentions and urged the U.S. to set a deadline for Iran to respond positively. Israel fears Iran will use American engagement to buy time to develop nuclear weapons.

When asked about Netanyahu, she acknowledged the possibility of disagreements with any Israeli government and made clear the U.S. will push forward with its efforts to forge a peace deal that includes the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"The United States will be vigorously engaged in the pursuit of a two-state solution every step of the way," she said. "The inevitability of working toward a two state-solution is inescapable."

Netanyahu characterized his talks with Clinton as "deep and important and good" and said the two agreed to meet again once a new Israeli government is formed.

Netanyahu, leader of the hardline Likud Party, is putting together a new coalition government after right-wing and Orthodox Jewish parties won a majority of seats in last month's Israeli parliamentary election. He is expected to be sworn in as prime minister within weeks.

His criticism of U.S.-led Mideast peace talks during the recent election campaign has raised fears that his government could clash with the Obama administration.

But ahead of his meeting with Clinton, Netanyahu showed signs of backing off his previous pledges to abandon the current round of peace talks, launched in November 2007 at a U.S.-hosted summit.

That message would mark a change in the Likud leader's long-stated position that peace talks are a waste of time because of the weakness of the Palestinian leadership. He has suggested in the past he would instead invest in the Palestinian economy while continuing Israel's military occupation of the West Bank indefinitely.

"The common goal is creative thinking to get out of the maze and try to create a new reality," Netanyahu told journalists after his session with Clinton. "There is a deep will on both our sides to work in cooperation."

Several Netanyahu aides said his talks with Clinton focused on Iran and the Gaza situation. The aides said Netanyahu asked that the U.S. set a deadline for Iran to respond to its diplomatic overtures, but he did not say what the U.S. should do if the deadline passes.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not sit in on the meeting, but instead had been briefed by Netanyahu.

Hamas officials reacted harshly to Clinton's criticism.

"We haven't seen anything good," said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza. "She approves of occupation and its crimes and interferes in Palestinian internal affairs."

In Damascus, the U.S. Embassy announced that Jeffrey Feltman, the State Department's top diplomat for the Middle East, would lead the American delegation headed to the Syrian capital. Embassy spokeswoman Katherine Vandevate said the visit aims to build on his "substantive and constructive" meeting last month with Syria's ambassador in Washington, Imad Moustapha.

Clinton's packed schedule of meetings with Israeli leaders also included talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. On Wednesday, she is to call on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel obliterated symbols of Hamas power on the third day of what the defense minister described Monday as a "war to the bitter end," striking next to the Hamas premier's home, and devastating a security compound and a university building.

The three-day death toll rose to at least 315 by Monday morning, with some 1,400 wounded. The U.N. said at least 51 of the dead were civilians, and medics said eight children under the age of 17 were killed in two separate strikes overnight. Israel launched its campaign, the deadliest against Palestinians in decades, on Saturday in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at civilians in southern Israeli towns.

Since then, the number of Israeli troops on the Gaza border has doubled and the Cabinet approved the call-up of 6,500 reserve soldiers.

The strikes have driven Hamas leaders into hiding and appear to have gravely damaged the organization's ability to launch rockets, but barrages continued. Sirens warning of incoming rockets sent Israelis scrambling for cover throughout the day.

One medium-range rocket fired at the Israeli city of Ashkelon killed an Arab construction worker there Monday and wounded several others. He was the second Israeli killed since the beginning of the offensive, and the first person ever to be killed by a rocket in Ashkelon, a city of 120,000.

On Sunday, Hamas missiles struck for the first time near the city of Ashdod, twice as far from Gaza as Ashkelon and only 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Israel's heart in Tel Aviv. Hamas leaders have also threatened to renew suicide attacks inside Israel.

At first light Monday, strong winds blew black smoke from the bombed sites over Gaza City's deserted streets. The air hummed with the buzz of drone aircraft and the roar of jets, punctuated by airstrike explosions. Palestinian health officials said one strike killed four Islamic Jihad militants and a child.

Some Palestinians ventured outside for mourning. In northern Gaza, a father lifted the body of his 4-year-old during a funeral Monday for five children from the same family killed in an Israeli missile strike.

On Monday, the White House released a statement saying "in order for the violence to stop, Hamas must stop firing rockets into Israel and agree to respect a sustainable and durable ceasefire."

Most of those killed since Saturday were members of Hamas security forces, though the precise numbers remain unclear. A Hamas police spokesman, Ehab Ghussen, said 180 members of the Hamas security forces were among the dead, and the U.N. agency in charge of Palestinian refugees said at least 51 of the dead were civilians. A rise in civilian casualties could intensify international pressure on Israel to end the offensive.

Israel's intense bombings - more than 300 airstrikes since midday Saturday - reduced dozens of buildings to rubble. The military said naval vessels also bombarded targets from the sea.

One strike destroyed a five-story building in the women's wing at Islamic University, one of the most prominent Hamas symbols in Gaza. Other attacks ravaged a compound controlled by Preventive Security, one of the group's chief security arms, and destroyed a house next to the residence of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister.

Late Sunday, Israeli aircraft attacked a building in the Jebaliya refugee camp next to Gaza City, killing five children and teenagers under age 17 from the same family, Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said. In the southern town of Rafah, a toddler and his two teenage brothers were killed in an airstrike aimed at a Hamas commander, Hassanain said. In Gaza City, another attack killed two women.

Some families fled their apartments next to institutions linked to Hamas.

Suad Abu Wadi, 42, kept her six children close on mattresses in her Gaza City living room. Her husband sat with them, chain-smoking. Abu Wadi said he said nothing since seeing their neighbor carrying the body of his child, killed in an airstrike Saturday.

Gaza's nine hospitals were overwhelmed. Hassanain, who keeps a record for the Gaza Health Ministry, said that some of the over 1,400 wounded were now being taken to private clinics and even homes.

Abdel Hafez, a 55-year-old history teacher, waited outside a Gaza City bakery to buy bread. He said he was not a Hamas supporter but believed the strikes would only increase support for the group. "Each strike, each drop of blood are giving Hamas more fuel to continue," he said.

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, told parliament Israel was not fighting the residents of Gaza. "But we have a war to the bitter end against Hamas and its branches," he said. Barak said the goal is to deal Hamas a "severe blow" and that the operation would be "widened and deepened as needed."

In Israel, 17 people have been killed in attacks from Gaza since the beginning of the year, including nine civilians - six of them killed by rockets - and eight soldiers, according to Israel's Foreign Ministry.

Israeli security officials have warned that the militants' range now includes Beersheba, a major city 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Gaza. Resident Mazal Ivgi, 62, said she had prepared a bomb shelter. "In the meantime we don't really believe it's going to happen, but when the first boom comes people will be worried," she said.

Israel began Saturday's assault by targeting Hamas security installations, and has broadened the attacks since then. On Sunday planes struck dozens of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, cutting off a key lifeline that had supplied Hamas with weapons and Gaza with commercial goods.

In Jerusalem, Israel's Cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reserve soldiers Sunday in apparent preparation for a ground offensive. The final decision to call up reserves has yet to be made by the defense minister, and the Cabinet decision could be a pressure tactic. Military experts said Israel would need at least 10,000 soldiers for a full-scale invasion.

Israel has doubled the number of troops around Gaza and also deployed an artillery battery. Several hundred reservists have already been summoned to join their units, but no full combat formations have been mobilized so far.

The assault has sparked diplomatic fallout. Syria decided to suspend indirect peace talks with Israel, and the U.N. Security Council called on both sides to halt the fighting and asked Israel to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Israel opened one of Gaza's border crossings Monday, and about 40 trucks had entered with food and medical supplies by midday, military spokesman Peter Lerner said.

Egypt also opened its borders to Gaza and allowed trucks loaded with humanitarian aid to enter the Rafah terminal Monday. It was also taking in wounded Palestinians from Gaza, with more than a dozen Egyptian ambulances waiting at the crossing.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who heads a moderate government in the West Bank and is holding peace talks with Israel, issued his strongest condemnation yet of the operation, calling it a "sweeping Israeli aggression against Gaza" and saying he would consult with his bitter rivals in Hamas in an effort to end it.

Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters Monday, while "Hamas is looking for children to kill."

"Hamas is targeting deliberately kindergartens and schools and citizens and civilians because this is according to their values. Our values are completely different. We are trying to target Hamas, which hides among civilians," Livni said.

The carnage inflamed Arab and Muslim public opinion, setting off street protests in Arab communities in Israel and the West Bank, across the Arab world, and in some European cities.

In Iraq, about 1,000 backers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr staged a protest Monday in Baghdad demanding Israel immediately stop its air assault. The political party of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the attacks and called on Islamic countries to cut relations with Israel.

On Monday, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded four Israelis in a West Bank settlement before he was shot and wounded. It was not immediately clear if the attack was directly connected to the events in Gaza.