JERUSALEM — Diplomatic efforts accelerated on Tuesday to end the deadly confrontation between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, as the United States sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Middle East and Egypt’s president and his senior aides expressed confidence that a cease-fire was close.
The diplomatic moves to end the nearly week-old crisis came on a day of some of the most intense violence yet. Israeli aerial forces assaulted several targets, including a suspected rocket-launching site near Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital, which killed at least nine people. A delegation visiting from the Arab League canceled a news conference at the hospital because of the Israeli assault, as wailing ambulances brought victims in, some of them decapitated.
Militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets that hit the southern Israeli cities of Beersheba and Ashdod, and longer-range rockets toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, but neither main city was struck and no casualties were reported. One Gaza rocket hit a building in the Israeli city of Rishon Lezion, just south of Tel Aviv, injuring one person.
Senior Egyptian officials in Cairo said Israel and Hamas were “very close” to a cease-fire agreement that could be announced within hours. “We have not received final approval but I hope to receive it any moment,” said Essam el-Haddad, President Mohamed Morsi’s top foreign affairs adviser.
Foreign diplomats who were briefed on the outlines of a tentative agreement said it had been structured in stages — first, an announcement at 10 p.m. local time (3 p.m. E.S.T.) of a cease-fire, followed by its implementation at midnight, for 48 hours, creating a window for negotiators to agree on conditions for a longer-term cessation of hostilities.
The announcement of Mrs. Clinton’s active role in efforts to defuse the crisis added a strong new dimension to the multinational push to avert a new Middle East war. Israel has amassed thousands of soldiers on the border with Gaza and has threatened to invade the crowded Palestinian enclave for the second time in four years to stop the persistent rockets that have been lobbed at Israel.
Mrs. Clinton, who accompanied President Obama on his three-country Asia trip, left Cambodia on her own plane immediately for the Middle East. She was en route to Jerusalem to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, then head to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders and finally to Cairo to consult with Egyptian officials.
The decision to dispatch Mrs. Clinton dramatically deepens the American involvement in the crisis. Mr. Obama made a number of late-night phone calls from his Asian tour to the Middle East on Monday night that contributed to his conclusion that he had to become more engaged and that Mrs. Clinton might be able to accomplish something.
With Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, also in Israel on Tuesday, a senior official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had decided to give more time to diplomacy before launching a ground invasion into Gaza. But Israel has not withdrawn other options.
“I prefer a diplomatic solution,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement at the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle. “I hope that we can get one, but if not, we have every right to defend ourselves with other means and we shall use them.
“As you know, we seek a diplomatic unwinding to this, through the discussions of cease-fire,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “But if the firing continues, we will have to take broader action and we won’t hesitate to do so.”
Intensifying the pressure on Hamas after a day of heavy rocket fire out of Gaza against southern Israel, the Israeli military said on Tuesday afternoon that it had distributed leaflets over Gaza instructing the Palestinian residents in several areas to evacuate their homes immediately, “for your safety,” and to move toward defined zones in central Gaza City. That seemed intended to signal that plans for a ground operation were imminent should the cease-fire talks fail.About three hours before Mr. Ban was scheduled to meet Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, sirens sounded across the city in the early afternoon announcing an incoming rocket from Gaza. The military wing of Hamas said it had fired at the city. The rocket fell short, landing harmlessly in the West Bank just south of Jerusalem, and the military said it landed on open ground near a Palestinian village.
The rocket attack on the city, which is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, was the second in less than a week. On Friday, a rocket landed in a similar location, the police said.
The Israeli military said its air force had struck Tuesday morning at 11 Palestinian squads involved in planting explosives and firing rockets, as well as underground rocket launchers and a store of weapons and ammunition. The military said it had also used tank shells and artillery fire against unspecified targets in Gaza.
Clinton Visits in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict; Egypt Hints at Truce
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Clinton Visits in Effort to Defuse Gaza Conflict; Egypt Hints at Truce
