Israel and Hamas battles into third week

Medical officials in the Gaza Strip said the Palestinian death toll had risen to 786, of whom more than a third were children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, Reuters said.

AFP, however, reported Since the start of the offensive, at least 802 Palestinians have been killed, including 235 children and 93 women, and another 3,350 wounded, according to Gaza medics.

AP said more than 800 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians.

Thirteen Israelis have been killed: 10 soldiers and three civilians hit by Hamas rocket fire.

Israel carried out more than 40 air strikes against the territory overnight, targeting arms manufacturing sites, weapon depots and smuggling tunnels, an army spokeswoman told AFP.

The bombing of tunnels along the southern Gaza border with Egypt, used to smuggle arms and other goods into Gaza, knocked out electricity in the town of Rafah, residents said, Reuters added.

Hamas has fired around 35 rockets into Israel in the past 24 hours. No casualties or damage were reported after the latest salvo on Saturday.

UN TO RESUME OPERATIONS

The United Nations announced it would resume operations in Gaza -- reeling from its deadliest ever Israeli assault -- soon after receiving security assurances from Israel following a deadly attack on one of its convoys.

In a statement, the UN said it would resume staff movements in the enclave where most of the 1.5 million population depend on foreign aid after Israel gave "credible assurances that the security of UN personnel installations and humanitarian operations would be fully respected."

A spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, told AFP that convoys were expected to start circulating again after Saturday.

Both Israel and Hamas brushed off a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate truce in the fighting,

UN chief Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment with Israel’s defiance of a resolution -- passed by 14 of the Security Council’s 15 members and backed in principle by Washington -- demanding an immediate halt to the war.

"The secretary general spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by phone this afternoon and expressed his disappointment that the violence is continuing on the ground in disregard of yesterdays Security Council resolution," Bans spokeswoman Michele Montas said late on Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel would not bow to "outside influence" and would not stop its offensive in the face of persistent rocket fire from Gaza.

Hamas said it was not consulted on the ceasefire resolution and would not accept a truce that did not see the lifting of the crippling blockade which Israel imposed on the territory after the Islamists seized power in June 2007.

Israel launched its war against the Islamists on December 27 aiming to end rocket fire against southern towns and the smuggling of weapons into Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt.