Israeli forces squeeze Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel's senior general said more work lay ahead in the 18-day offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Israeli tanks and troops edged closer to the heart of the city of Gaza. The Palestinian death toll rose to 971, Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said, counting some 400 women and children among those killed. Israel says 10 Israeli soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rockets have died.

The chief U.N. aid official for Gaza appealed to the international community to protect Gaza's civilians, saying nowhere in the territory of 1.5 million people was safe any longer with the conflict becoming "a test of our humanity."

"All the people, the first thing they say to me and the last thing they say to me is 'Please, we need protection, nowhere is safe," John Ging, director of operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, told reporters in Geneva by videolink.

Explosions and heavy machinegun fire echoed across Gaza, a city of 500,000, after Israeli tanks moved nearer to its densely populated downtown area but did not enter, residents said. The tanks appeared to be testing how the militants reacted.

The sporadic explosions could be heard late into the night across the Gaza Strip although there was no immediate word of more casualties.

Talat Jad, a 30-year-old resident of Tel al-Hawa suburb, said he and 15 members of his family had gathered in one room of their house, too frightened to look out of the window.

"We even silenced our mobile phones because we were afraid the soldiers in the tanks could hear them," Jad said.

Medical workers said 23 Palestinian fighters, most of them members of the Islamist Hamas group, and seven civilians were killed in the latest fighting.

In Cairo, a Hamas delegation resumed talks on a ceasefire plan proposed by Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip and Israel and has made peace with the Jewish state.

Israeli aircraft attacked 60 targets, including tunnels used by militants to bring arms across the border from Egypt. Two rockets hit Beersheba in southern Israel without causing casualties.

"We have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead," Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of Israel's armed forces, told a parliamentary committee.

Ashkenazi said Israeli aircraft had carried out more than 2,300 strikes since the offensive -- Israel's deadliest against Palestinians in decades -- was launched on December 27.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was heading to the region for a week of talks with leaders in Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Syria aimed at ending the bloodshed.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pressed leaders of Israel and Egypt for moves toward a full and sustainable ceasefire, his office said. Brown "has been deeply troubled by the scenes of terrible suffering," it said.