Israel sent 80 truckloads of food, medicine and other essentials into Gaza on Monday. But distribution was hampered by shelling that reached deeper into residential areas, set off blazes on the ground and kept people indoors.
"The first thing you are struck by is emptiness in the streets," said John Ging, director of Gaza operations for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. "Intermittently you see a family running with their suitcases, obviously looking for some shelter."
People "are terrorized," he told reporters at U.N. headquarters via satellite video hookup from Gaza City.
"They feel trapped. . . . There is nowhere for them to go. People who are in homes, they're not safe. The casualty figures speak to that."
Gaza's bloodshed and suffering have spurred street protests against Israel around the world.
Arab delegates met Monday with the U.N. Security Council in New York and urged members to adopt a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, heading a European Union peace mission, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy met separately with Israeli officials in Jerusalem to press the same message.
"The guns must fall silent," Sarkozy said.
"There must be a humanitarian truce."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni rejected the appeals, saying the military needed more time to subdue Hamas while details of a truce-enforcement mechanism are worked out.
She also rejected any negotiations with Hamas.
"We are not asking the world to take part in the battle; we are only asking to be allowed to carry it out ourselves until we reach a point in which we decide our goals have been met," Livni said at a joint news conference with Schwarzenberg.
U.S. officials have refrained from demanding an immediate cease-fire. President Bush said Monday that no peace deal would work unless it forces Hamas to stop its attacks.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack outlined a cease-fire plan being promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to address Israel's security concerns. He said Rice had discussed it by phone over the weekend with 17 foreign leaders in Europe and the Middle East.
The proposal calls for a halt to Hamas' rocket attacks and an international arrangement to shut down weapons smuggling to Gaza from Egypt. It also addresses Hamas' main demand -- ending an Israeli blockade of Gaza -- by proposing a reopening of crossing points on the Israeli-Gaza border.
In Damascus, Syria, a senior Hamas official rejected the U.S. proposal, the Associated Press reported. It quoted Moussa Abu Marzouk as saying the plan seeks to impose "a de facto situation" on Gaza by military force.
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boudreaux@latimes.com
Special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City and Times staff writer Geraldine Baum at the United Nations contributed to this report.
