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Gaza: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace negotiations with Israel on Sunday, demanding it end a Gaza offensive that has killed more than 100 Palestinians, many of them civilians.
Abbas ordered "the suspension of negotiations ... until [Israeli] aggression is stopped", a senior aide to the Palestinian leader said in Ramallah.
But Abbas stopped short of declaring dead the US-brokered statehood talks opposed by Hamas who seized control of the Gaza Strip from his Fatah movement in June.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said, "The negotiations are buried under the houses that were destroyed in Gaza. The peace process has been destroyed because of the aggressions and the crimes that have been committed."
The United States later called for an end to the violence and a resumption of negotiations. "The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to meet Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week.
Demonstrations
A 21-month-old Palestinian girl, two other civilians and three militants were killed in the latest fighting in the Gaza Strip, raising the Palestinian death toll in five days of bloodshed to more than 100, including about 60 civilians, medical officials said.
Israeli aircraft sent missiles slamming into the office of the prime minister of Hamas-ruled Gaza before dawn on Sunday.
Prime Minister Esmail Haniya's office was empty at the time of the airstrike, but the raid was seen as a tough message to the Hamas leadership, which has refused to halt ongoing rocket barrages that target growing swaths of southern Israel.
Anti-Israeli demonstrations erupted in West Bank, where Israeli forces confronting stone-throwers near the town of Hebron shot dead a 14-year-old boy wearing a Hamas headband, witnesses said.
‘Excessive force'
Earlier, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Israel of using "excessive force". He demanded a halt to air and ground attacks that killed 61 people on Saturday, the bloodiest day for Palestinians since the 1980s, and fighters' rocket salvoes.
European Union president Slovenia condemned Israel's attacks as disproportionate and violating international law. The presidency statement also called for an immediate halt to the rocket fire.
Abbas designated Sunday a day of mourning.
Meeting in emergency session, the UN Security Council said it was deeply concerned about civilian deaths in southern Israel and the Gaza Strip and urged a cessation of violence.
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