JOHANNESBURG, Jan 14: The head of the UN children’s agency said on Wednesday that more than 300 children had been killed and over 1,500 wounded in Gaza because of Israeli offensive.

Ann M. Veneman, executive director of Unicef, said in a statement released on Wednesday that children and their families were trapped in relentless violence.

She said children were the majority of Gaza’s population and were suffering in “a conflict which is not theirs.”

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was shocking.

“I saw this dramatic humanitarian situation. There’s an increasing number of women and children being wounded and going to hospitals,” Jakob Kellenberger told reporters in Jerusalem.

“It is shocking. It hurts when you see these wounded people and the types of wounds they have. And I think that in addition the number of people coming to these hospitals is increasing,” he said.

He said medical supplies are holding up in Gaza, where over 1,000 people have been killed in heavy fighting and aerial bombardments since the Dec 27 launch of the Israeli offensive.

Meanwhile, Hamas has accepted an Egyptian ceasefire proposal to end the war in the Gaza Strip and Cairo is awaiting Israel’s response, a senior Egyptian diplomat said.

“We have obtained Hamas’s agreement and are awaiting the response from Israel,” whose envoy Amos Gilad is due in Cairo on Thursday, the diplomat said, requesting anonymity.

“We will see when (Israeli defence official) Amos Gilad comes,” he added.

A Gaza-based Hamas delegation was due to hold a press conference in Cairo later on Wednesday.Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters in Jerusalem earlier that Hamas has accepted the Egyptian initiative.

“Hamas is going to publicly express its support and acceptance,” Moratinos, the European Union’s former Middle East envoy, told reporters.

Hamas insists on an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, in effect since the Islamists seized the territory in June 2007, and an opening up of crossing points to normal traffic.

Currently, Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza, the only one that bypasses Israel, can only be opened if European Union monitors and forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas are present.

Israel sought to tighten the screw on Hamas as the death from its war on Gaza passed 1,000, carrying out new bombing raids and waging more street battles as hopes rose of a ceasefire.

Doctors said a total of 1,013 people had now been killed in the Hamas-run territory while a further 4,580 people had been wounded since the launch of Operation Cast Lead on Dec 27.

Israeli warplanes blasted Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, carrying out some three dozen bombing raids and sending panicked residents fleeing, witnesses said.

The Israeli army said the air force struck nine rocket launch pads and three smuggling tunnels as they pushed on with their bid to prevent the Islamists from firing rockets and missiles across the border.

A total of 12 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza, the army said, a fraction of the rockets fired at the start of the war on Dec 27.

Hamas has remained defiant throughout the campaign, with prime minister Ismail Haniya insisting earlier this week that it was nearing victory over the Jewish state.

Israel has conditioned ending the offensive on a complete halt to rocket fire against the south of the country and stemming arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.

The diplomatic fallout from Israeli’s deadliest ever offensive in the impoverished strip became evident when a senior European Union official said talks on upgrading ties with the Jewish state had been put on hold.

“Both sides realise it is a convenient time for a time-out,” Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, head of the European Commission delegation to Israel, said.

And Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country had severed ties with Israel to protest the Gaza war, following the Jan 6 decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his socialist ally, to expel Israel’s ambassador.

The UN General Assembly Council is to hold an emergency session on Thursday to press for a call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip to be respected, its spokesman said on Wednesday.

The non-aligned movement released a statement here condemning in the strongest terms Israel’s blatant disregard of Security Council resolution 1860 (adopted last week)... and its flagrant defiance of the repeated calls from the international community of a complete cessation of military activities.”—Agencies