Death toll rises as exchange of fire continues - ABC Online

ELEANOR HALL: But we begin today with the latest on Israel's air campaign against Gaza.

Palestinians say the last 24 hours have been the most deadly yet for them, with hundreds of Israeli air attacks killing almost 30 Palestinians.

The five-day old conflict has so far killed 75 Palestinians and injured around 700 as the Israeli government presses home its offensive against Gazan rocket attacks, while Hamas rocket fire has killed 3 Israelis and injured more than 50.

Gaza's health ministry says at least nine members of the same family -- half of them children -- were killed when an Israeli missile destroyed a family home.

But there's also been no let-up in Hamas attacks, with at least 125 rockets landing in Israel - while scores more were intercepted mid-flight by the Iron Dome defence system.

As diplomatic efforts to broker a truce intensify, Israel must now decide whether to launch a ground offensive, or pursue the Egyptian-led peace efforts.

Our coverage begins with our correspondent Norman Hermant is in Jerusalem.

Norm, it's the early hours of the morning there now. Does that mean a few hours of respite or is there still a fear of missiles being fired from Gaza?

NORMAN HERMANT: I think there was a fear earlier this evening, in fact as the darkness was setting on the city of Tel Aviv, they had more air raid sirens, then another missile was intercepted over the city, although it should be said that last night, for the first time since this confrontation began, there were no missiles fired from Gaza at Israel and then of course as dawn broke, there was very heavy activity once and so we'll have to see whether that pattern repeats itself.

But I don't think anybody is being too comfortable at this point in time.

ELEANOR HALL: Are the people of Jerusalem still in a state of shock that their city has been targeted?

NORMAN HERMANT: I wouldn't say state of shock but i do think it captured a lot of people's attention. It really changed the lexicon of what we're hearing. For a long time you heard first these rockets threatened 1 million Israelis, then what Tel Aviv was reached, it went to 3 million, now it's sort of 3.5 million sort of falling in the population of Jerusalem. So you know you're creeping up to nearly half of Israel's population.

I think that was sort of psychologically important, the fact that even Jerusalem would be targeted. It was always considered to be a relatively safe city when it came to missiles simply because there's a very large Palestinian population here on the other side of the city and of course it was viewed to be extremely risky to try and launch missiles into this area.

But Hamas militants were determined to show they could hit Jerusalem as well.

ELEANOR HALL: The Israeli cabinet is warning that the Defence Force is ready for a significant expansion of this conflict. Are there any more concrete signs that a ground war is imminent?

NORMAN HERMANT: Well in terms of concrete signs, obviously there's a lot of material armaments, that sort of thing, being put into position. I think by now everybody is aware that the cabinet has approved a call-up of up to 75,000 reservists and I think so far something like 30,000 have actually been called up so those signs are in place.

A lot of the rhetoric that you're hearing from cabinet members is extremely uncompromising and I think it will be a very difficult sell - a ceasefire - when they've come this far because they are talking about how we can't repeat what we did four years ago. Now we really have to end this problem, we've got to go in an eliminate Hamas' missile launching capability.

That being said, the Israeli public has a very sensitive issue about casualties and you know, no-one is denying that it's going to be an extremely risky operation if there is a ground operation.

So for now it seems like the rhetoric seems to be pushing us towards this ground operation, but at the same time we're hearing lots of stories about how there's back channel communications going on to try and establish some sort of a ceasefire.

So we'll have to see how that goes.

ELEANOR HALL: And as you say, there is a lot of back channel discussion about negotiations over a ceasefire. Is there any official response from Israel to the plan by the Arab League to send a delegation of foreign ministers to Gaza?

NORMAN HERMANT: No official response on the movement of the Arab League to send conciliatories, or an official delegation to Gaza, and even more interestingly, in what has got a lot of people's attention here is really no official response to reports that Israeli envoys have actually confidentially been in Cairo and meeting for talks with senior Egyptian officials.

That was seen as noteworthy because there was an outright denial, there was simply a no comment. And I am told from those familiar with the way that Israeli negotiations usually work through back channels, that is tantamount to sort of an acknowledgement that yes there were Israeli envoys in the Egyptian capital in the last couple of days, and they were talking about a possible ceasefire.

ELEANOR HALL: So when people say this could be a regime change operation to get rid of Hamas altogether, then the prospect of an Israeli in Cairo would go against that?

NORMAN HERMANT: Yes and you know, that's interesting because analysts are sort of split down the middle on this. There are people who say that that is the government's actual intention, to get rid of Hamas, but then there's a lot more, especially considering what we've seen in Libya and now what we're seeing in Syria, you know, people have really no idea what would come after Hamas.

You could easily have an even more extreme Islamist government that had very little control over the Gaza strip and I think Israel would view that as a very negative development.

So they sort of are stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of when it comes to dealing with Hamas and the Gaza strip.

ELEANOR HALL: Norman Hermant, thanks very much for joining us.

NORMAN HERMANT: Thankyou.

ELEANOR HALL: That's out correspondent Norman Hermant in Jerusalem.