JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas scaled back their fighting in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and weighed a cease-fire proposal from Egypt and France, even as Israeli leaders considered a deeper assault into the Palestinian group’s urban strongholds.
Fighting on the 12th day of the air, land and sea offensive all but stopped for three hours during a unilateral Israeli pause. Israeli officials said they wanted to give diplomacy a chance, indicating that a decision either to end or intensify the operation, aimed at halting rocket fire into Israel, could come by week’s end.
“From Israel’s perspective, there’s no contradiction between pursuing the military targets in Gaza and working in parallel on the diplomatic track,” said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev. He added that “a weaker Hamas is a Hamas that’s easier to contain” under any negotiated cease-fire.
Tens of thousands of beleaguered Palestinians ventured into Gaza’s streets Wednesday afternoon to stock up on food and fuel, flee to safer quarters, or simply unwind. Fighting bracketed the lull, but the Palestinian death toll, 22, was the lowest of any day since Israel launched its offensive Dec. 27.
Israel, responding to a worldwide outcry over the punishing toll on Gaza’s 1.5 million people, suspended its offensive to allow humanitarian agencies to distribute relief supplies. Israeli officials said such brief lulls would be declared daily.
Hamas largely respected the 1-to-4 p.m. pause.
It was the first letup in an Israeli assault that has killed more than 700 Palestinians, of whom the United Nations says more than 400 are civilians. Ten Israelis have been killed since the fighting began, three of them civilians struck by continuing Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.
Like Israel, Hamas said it was studying the cease-fire proposal, which is being fleshed out in talks among the United States, Israel, European nations, Egypt and other Arab states. Egypt said it planned to hold separate talks with Israeli and Hamas representatives in Cairo, Egypt, starting today.
French officials said they had received a commitment from Syrian leader Bashar Assad to urge Hamas to accept a truce. Syria is a patron of the Islamist group.
In Jerusalem, Israeli leaders appeared to be seeking a way out of the bloodiest conflict in Gaza since Israel occupied the seaside enclave during the 1967 Middle East War.
Discussion on how to end the operation gained momentum after two events Tuesday: the cease-fire proposal offered by France and Egypt; and the Israeli shelling of a United Nations-run school in Gaza killed 43 civilians, raising international pressure on Israel to withdraw.
“Israel has reached an undesirable point,” Giora Eiland, a retired brigadier general who once led Israel’s National Security Council, told Israel Radio. “We have become the isolated party.”
