Bush calls Abbas to discuss Gaza

CRAWFORD, Texas-President George W. Bush and his top advisers conducted an urgent round of telephone diplomacy Tuesday to help end the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas, but insisted that if any new cease-fire is to work, it must be honored by the Islamic militant group.
"We want to see an end to the violence for the long term, not just the immediate," White House deputy press secretary Gordon Johndroe said, briefing reporters in Crawford, where Bush is staying at his ranch. "We don't want a cease-fire agreement that isn't worth the piece of paper it's written on. We want something that's lasting, and most importantly, respected by Hamas," which controls the Gaza Strip.Under international pressure, Israel is considering a 48-hour halt to its punishing air campaign on Hamas targets in Gaza to see whether the Palestinian militants will stop their rocket attacks on southern Israel. The United Nations said that during a teleconference Tuesday, the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia appealed for an immediate cease-fire that would be fully respected, and called for the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza to be addressed.Since Saturday, more than 350 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli air onslaught against Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers.The offensive came shortly after a rocky, six-month truce expired. The U.S. blames Hamas for breaking the truce.It says Israel has a right to defend its citizens from the attacks, yet the Arab world has been enraged by the four days of bombings by Israeli warplanes.Despite the bombings, Hamas has kept up its barrage of rockets, which have killed at least four Israelis since the weekend. Many more Israelis have been sent running for bomb shelters-some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time because the range of Hamas' rockets has grown.
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington, Edith Lederer at the United Nations and Ibrahim Barzak and Jason Keyser in Gaza City, contributed to this report.

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