Israel Wednesday deferred a decision on whether to order its armed forces to storm the Gaza Strip's urban centers.
The decision has been put on hold because of joint Egypt-France efforts to secure a truce with Hamas, an Israeli official said.
The move follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy's announcement that Israel and the Palestinian Authority have accepted an Egyptian-French plan for Gaza.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 640 Palestinians, at least a quarter of who were civilians, medics said, and Hamas rockets have claimed four Israelis' lives.
Israel said its troops had killed 130 guerrillas since Saturday, a figure that suggested the total Palestinian death toll since Dec 27 might be close to 770 and that bodies could still be on the battlefield.
Hundreds of embattled Palestinians in Gaza ventured outside to shop for food yesterday during a three-hour Gaza reprieve, a first step toward the Egyptian-proposed ceasefire under discussion by Israel and Hamas.
But violence resumed in the area soon after the 1 pm-4 pm truce expired.
Israel said it would cease attacks in the Gaza Strip during those hours every day to ease the flow of aid to the Hamas-run territory's 1.5 million residents.
Sarkozy yesterday made no mention of Hamas, the group that controls Gaza and is fighting with Israel.
He said in a statement issued after his return from the Middle East to Paris that he "strongly welcomes the acceptance by Israel and the Palestinian Authority of the French-Egyptian plan presented yesterday by (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak."
The statement's use of the term "acceptance" prompted Israel to say it had not accepted the plan and it was still in talks over the proposal. But it conceded that it viewed talks on the proposal "positively".
An official in Sarkozy's office said later that the French statement was merely a reaction to Israel's earlier positive comments about the plan and that it was not announcing Israel's acceptance of the peace proposal.
The US, too, said there was an urgent need to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas.
"We are working to do it as fast as we possibly can," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. But efforts are complicated because of the number of players involved, she said.
The US wants to hear further details about the Egyptian ceasefire proposal, Perino said, and insisted that Hamas first stop firing rockets into Israel for any truce to take shape.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had given US backing to Egypt's efforts on Tuesday. Yesterday, she urged Israel to seriously consider the ceasefire proposal as the UN Security Council weighed action to end Israel's attack on Gaza.
Rice spoke over the telephone to Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and was to meet Arab ministers as well as her French and British counterparts at the UN.
"We are trying to move forward here on a lot of different fronts," said a senior US official traveling with Rice, who planned to stay in New York to push the diplomatic efforts. "We are supportive of the Mubarak initiative ... we are saying (to the Israelis) that it is an effort worth working on."
Intensifying a weeklong air assault, Israeli troops and tanks invaded Gaza Strip on Saturday, clashing with Palestinian guerrillas. But they did not advance beyond the outskirts of Gaza City or other densely populated areas.
Israel called the initial ground sweep the "second stage" of an operation to counter cross-border Palestinian rocket salvoes, without giving details on what might follow. That opacity helped spur a frenzy of international ceasefire mediation.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet met yesterday to discuss the third - and final - stage of the offensive but deferred voting on the plan to an undisclosed date.
Postponing a final decision on the plan allowed Israel to keep its forces in readiness while maintaining leeway for any breakthrough in the Egyptian-French truce talks.
Asked about the postponement of the decision, a senior Israeli defense official said: "We are pursuing parallel military and diplomatic tracks, so this is no simple matter."
Source:Xinhua
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