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Israel declares ceasefire in Gaza Israel is to halt its three-week military offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said. Israel had achieved the aims of its operation, Mr Olmert said, and a unilateral Israeli ceasefire would take effect from 0200 (2400 GMT). Earlier, a Hamas spokesman said it would fight until its demands were met. Nearly 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died. Minutes before Mr Olmert was due to speak, a rocket was fired from Gaza, a BBC producer in Gaza said. 'Goals...

(IsraelNN.com) The cabinet has voted to accept a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza. Two ministers voted against the proposal and one abstained from voting.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel plans to halt its Gaza offensive without any deal with Hamas, an Israeli official said on Saturday, in an apparent effort to deny the Islamist group any gains from the three-week-old conflict. Hamas leaders in exile have vowed to fight on, but many of the 1.5 million Palestinians enduring incessant bombardment and privation in Gaza seemed desperate for their ordeal to end. "The goal is to announce, subject to cabinet approval, a suspension of military activities because we believe our goals have been attained," said the official, asking not to be named.

This morning, Hamas leader in hiding Khaled Mashaal rejected Israel's conditions for a Gaza cease-fire and demanded an immediate opening of the territory's borders, taking a tough line Friday as he asked Arab countries to back him by cutting off any ties with Israel. The Hamas government in hiding is arguing with the Hamas government in Gaza whether they have been defeated. Mashaal was attending a conference of Arab leaders taking place in Quatar. The summit was boycotted by some of the more "moderate" Arab countries Egypt & Saudi Arabia. It looks as if the gap between the moderate and...

Last week in the conference call with bloggers, myself included, Gen. Effie Eitam advised that Israel was going to pulverize Gaza City and would not agree to a ceasefire without recovering Corp Shalit. Then the talk of a lousy ceasefire filled the news and I thought that Effie mislead us. But now I think not. From the getgo, Israel managed the war and the message brilliantly. First of all, the press was barred from Gaza even though the Israel SC ordered that they be permitted in. The diplomatic core stayed on message and the IDF shut up. All to the...

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UNITED NATIONS/GAZA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip but Israeli warplanes launched intermittent attacks on Friday. After days of intense haggling, the Security Council passed a resolution urging an "immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire", and for Israel to withdraw from Gaza after a 14-day air-and-ground offensive. The United States abstained. The resolution, pressed for by Arab countries in the face of efforts by Britain, France and the United States for a more muted statement, called for arrangements to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza and for its borders to...

For nine days, as European and United Nations officials have called urgently for a cease-fire in Gaza, the Bush administration has squarely blamed the rocket attacks of the Palestinian militant group Hamas for Israel’s assault, maintaining to the end its eight-year record of stalwart support for Israel. Mr. Bush, in his weekly radio address on Saturday, said the United States did not want a “one-way cease-fire” that allowed Hamas to keep up its rocket fire, and Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday echoed the point, declaring that only a “sustainable, durable” peace would be acceptable. Many Middle East experts say...

In recent days CNN has been playing an interview with Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti in which he claims that Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas by launching an attack in November, and that the current fighting is therefore the fault of Israel rather than the Palestinians. Barghouti also charged that Israel’s supposed blockade of Gaza was a further violation of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Mexico's warring cartels are negotiating a truce that, if it holds, could end one of the bloodiest eras since the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution, according to a U.S. official and experts familiar with the talks. A peace agreement would be the second in two years and, like the last one, its chances of surviving are slim, the U.S. official said. "In the end, greed prevails over reason," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Last year was one of the bloodiest ever, with more than 5,700 people killed nationwide, including 1,600 in Ciudad Juárez. "These guys...

December 28, 2008 UK and Vatican Call for Cease Fire in Gaza by Bill Levinson The United Kingdom has called for an “immediate halt” to violence in Gaza, while the Pope called upon “all sides” to end the violence. We do not recall either Britain or the Vatican speaking up when Hamas was pouring rockets and mortar shells into Israel. We therefore do not see why Israel should even listen to anything that either entity has to say now that Hamas is reaping what it has sown.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128941 'Ceasefire' Over, Gaza Terrorists Add Sniper Fire to Arsenal by Hana Levi Julian (IsraelNN.com) The firing at farmers in the field is the final piece of evidence on the end of the 'calm' Gaza terrorists began the first official day after the end of the so-called "temporary ceasefire" early Friday morning with the usual barrage of Kassam rockets aimed at the western Negev. The attacks began at the usual hour, approximately 7:30 a.m., when Jewish children are walking to school and their parents and other adults are on their way to work, thus maximizing the chances of the missiles...

ST. PAUL, MINN. - Republican John McCain's primary campaign almost collapsed last year under the weight of opponents' attacks that he backed "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. As McCain prepares to accept his party's nomination for president tonight, past critics of the Arizona senator's position have rallied behind his candidacy. McCain, meanwhile, has backed away from signature immigration legislation and signed off on a party platform that makes a fence along the Mexican border a priority. The party's Twin Cities unity on immigration bridges, for now, an increasingly charged ideological rift for Republican candidates and campaigns. "We don't go around talking...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 26, 2008 – Though “significant Russian movements” have taken place in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Russia still is not living up to the terms of the cease-fire agreement, a senior Defense Department official said here today. “There is still a sizeable Russian presence in Georgia. … They’ve established some self-declared security zones, observation posts and checkpoints and the like,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a meeting with reporters. “All are a reflection that they are not living up to the agreement.” The mission of the U.S. military in the country now is to provide humanitarian...

...As he was speaking, Russian armored fighting vehicles, tanks and troop transport trucks were staged alongside the side of the road between Gori and Igoeti. The deputy head of the Russian military's general staff, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, told media in Moscow that there were no troops in Gori. But a McClatchy journalist on Saturday saw dozens of military vehicles pouring out of the city. The Russians denied destroying the railroad bridge, not far from Igoeti. The blast suspended Azeri rail transportation of crude oil across Georgia to Black Sea ports, according to Russian state media. The Georgian government provided...

IGOETI, Georgia -- Russia and its allied forces today destroyed a key railway bridge linking war-weary Georgia's capital to the Black Sea coast, effectively severing all east-west transportation routes within the small country, the Georgian Foreign Ministry announced.

Sponsors of a UN Security Council resolution to formalize the ceasefire deal between Russia and Georgia pushed for a vote by week's end, but Moscow balked at inserting any reference to Georgia's territorial integrity. "Yes ideally, we would like a vote this weekend," a Western diplomat close to the bargaining involving European, US and Russian diplomats told AFP Friday. "But we'll take as long as it takes. We are not going to push for a vote if we know that the Russians will veto the text -- which does not mean we have to give in to all their demands......

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2008 – A cease-fire agreement signed today by the president of the former Soviet republic of Georgia calls for Russian troops to immediately leave his country, America’s senior diplomat said in the Georgian capital today. “And now, with the signature of the Georgian president on this cease-fire accord, all Russian troops and any irregular and paramilitary forces that entered with them must leave immediately,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said during a news conference in Tbilisi with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at her side. President Bush dispatched Rice to Europe to assist in resolving a now...

Choosing expediency over principle, the United States and its allies are pushing Georgia's pro-Western government to accept major concessions in a cease-fire with Russia. Despite warnings of serious consequences for Russia for its invasion of the former Soviet republic, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Georgia on Friday to try to persuade its leadership to agree to a deal that expands the mandate of Russian troops on Georgian territory. The French-mediated proposal calls for the immediate withdrawal of Russian combat troops from Georgia, but allows Russian peacekeepers who were in the flashpoint separatist area of South Ossetia before last...

Russian troops are indiscriminately murdering civilians and interning them in concentration camps, the embattled Georgian president charged yesterday, as he begged the West not to "appease" Moscow as it did with Nazi Germany. The startling accusations came as Russian troops blatantly violated a cease-fire by sending an armored convoy through the strategic city of Gori. The invaders first poured into Georgia five days ago - ostensibly in defense of a pro-Moscow breakaway region, South Ossetia. "What they are doing is exactly what Stalin did to Finland, what they've done to Afghanistan, what in the Second World War Germany was doing...