Raid undermines Egypt truce talks

Dubai: As Palestinian factions prepared for talks in Egypt on a possible truce, four children their mother and a fighter were killed in Israeli operations in Gaza on Monday, which Hamas called a "massacre" and Israel blamed on Hamas.

Leaders from three Palestinian groups headed to Cairo on Monday for talks with Egyptian intelligence officials on a possible Gaza Strip truce with Israel, Egyptian security and border sources said.

They said senior members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine crossed from Gaza into Egypt via the normally sealed Rafah border.

The leaders then headed to Cairo via three buses in a security convoy, the sources said.

Hamas proposed a six-month truce between Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, with an option to extend it to include the West Bank. It would also include an end to the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-run coastal strip.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Zahar said at the time that other Palestinian factions including Islamic Jihad and leftist groups based in Damascus had preliminarily approved the offer, which Israel has dismissed.

Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Sulaiman, Cairo's main contact with Hamas and Israel, had agreed to call Palestinian factions to Egypt to discuss the offer and ensure Palestinian consensus.

Cairo talks have been shadowed by the Israeli raid on Gaza on Monday, which killed four siblings - aged one, three, four and five - when a tank shell hit their home in the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. The four girls and their mother died later of her wounds, doctors at the Kamal Radwan hospital said.

Islamic Jihad fighters had clashed with Israeli troops near the house which is close to Gaza's border with Israel, Palestinian security officials said, and the group said one of its fighters was killed in the same area.

Israeli President Ehud Olmert expressed regret over the killing. An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops who took part in the raid had withdrawn from Gaza back into Israel.

Hamas lashed out at Israel, saying the strike undermined talks in Egypt aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza.

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya said in a statement that the "massacre" was part of Israel's ''constant attempts to destroy any regional or international effort to lift the siege and end the violence."

Meanwhile, Egyptian security sources said each of the Palestinian factions would meet with security officials separately on Tuesday and Wednesday, but a general meeting with all the groups together had not yet been set.