Palestinians suspend peace talks with Israel as Gaza death toll mounts

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel sent missiles slamming into the office of Gaza’s Hamas prime minister Sunday, pressing on with an offensive that has killed nearly 70 Palestinians in two days. The moderate Palestinian president suspended peace talks with Israel.\nAt least 54 Palestinians, roughly half of them civilians, were killed in Gaza fighting Saturday, the deadliest day in more than seven years of violence, Palestinian medical officials said. Another 14 Palestinians, one of them a 21-month-old girl, were killed or found dead Sunday. Two Israeli soldiers were killed on Saturday.\nSince the latest bout of fighting erupted on Wednesday, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed, according to an AP tally based on information from Palestinian medical officials and militant groups.\n“We are following the aggression against our people in Gaza,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters. “I’ve conducted contacts with various leaders, with the Security Council, with the EU and with Arab leaders to work to stop this aggression,” he said.\nPalestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said peace talks with Israel had been halted.\n“For the time being, the negotiations are suspended because we have so many funerals,” he said. It was unclear when the talks, relaunched last November at a U.S.-hosted summit, would resume.\nSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to visit this week to try to spur progress in peace talks. Instead, she will likely spend her visit trying to put out the latest fire.\nPrime Minister Ismail Haniyeh’s office was empty at the time of Sunday’s pre-dawn airstrike. But the raid was seen as a tough message to the Hamas leadership, which Israel holds responsible for repeated rocket barrages launched from Gaza.\nHaniyeh spoke to leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, asking them “to stop this aggression,” said government spokesman Taher Nunu. He also called for reconciliation talks with Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction headed by Abbas and ousted from Gaza by Hamas last June.\nIsrael’s response to incessant Palestinian rocket fire at southern Israeli communities drew hard international condemnation. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon accused Israel of “disproportionate and excessive use of force.”\nPrime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the criticism and vowed to press on with the Gaza offensive.\n“With all due respect, nothing will prevent us from continuing operations to protect our citizens,” he told his Cabinet.\nOlmert’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said an even broader Gaza operation was in the cards, aimed at crushing militant rocket squads but also to “weaken the Hamas rule, in the right circumstances, even to bring it down.”\nIsrael regularly clashes with Gaza rocket squads, but intensified its operations after militants fired salvos last week into Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 closer to Israel’s heartland than previous targets. By striking Ashkelon, some 11 miles north of Gaza, Hamas added pressure on Israeli leaders to exact a high price for the increasing sense of insecurity felt in southern Israel.\nThe onslaught failed however to stop rockets from battering southern Israel. Nine were fired at southern Israel by midday Sunday, including one that struck a house in the rocket-scarred town of Sderot less than a mile from Gaza, the military said. One rocket lightly wounded four Sderot residents, Israeli rescue services said.\nAbout 50 rockets and mortars were fired Saturday, injuring six Israelis.