MOSCOW - The so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators called on Israel to freeze all settlement activities and denounced Israel's aim to build new housing in East Jerusalem Friday.

"The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activities ... and to refrain from demolitions and evictions," said the statement read by Ban.

Those plans this month caused prospects for indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks to collapse and prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who i

LOL, like Israel cares what the international community thinks. They've never honored any of the agreements they've made. Heck, they even murdered UN relief workers during a ceasefire and nobody did anything about it. Well, I take that back, we gave them more foreign aid as a reward, so that's something I guess.

Israeli forces have reportedly opened fire on a UN relief agency convoy in the Gaza Strip during its 3-hour military ceasefire.

UN spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said Thursday that Israeli soldiers attacked a relief truck even though the United Nations had coordinated the delivery with Tel Aviv and the vehicle was marked with a UN flag and insignia.

"It has resulted tragically in the death of one and the injury of two others," said the head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, John Ging.

Tel Aviv declared a three-hour lull in its 13-day incursion into Gaza on Thursday to allow humanitarian aid pass into the beleaguered strip.

This comes as Israeli attacks on three UN-run schools has killed at least 43 civilians and injured over 150 others -- most of whom were seeking shelter inside the school to escape the arbitrary Israeli strikes.

The United Nations had reacted in shock to the incident and stepped up calls for an independent inquiry into the attack -- the deadliest since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began Dec. 27

"There must be a serious and independent investigation into the shocking loss of civilian life that took place near the UN school and that has characterized this conflict," said deputy Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, Joe Stork.

"The building was clearly waving a UN flag, there is no safe haven in Gaza. Look at what happened in Jabaliya yesterday," said Chris Gunness the spokesman for the UNWRA, the UN agency running the school.

Tel Aviv tried to justify the incident as an attack on a militant stronghold.

The UN, however, has dismissed the Israeli claims.

Israel waged war on the Gaza Strip on December 27 and began what it claims to be a "long-term" ground offensive on the Palestinian territory last Saturday.

Thus far, the Israeli aggression has killed at least 763 Palestinians and injured over 3,100 others -- a large number of casualties are civilians.

Mr Netanyahu ceded little ground to Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, as he finally responded to a series of conditions she set out to end a 10-day standoff between Israel and its superpower patron.

The Israeli leader gambled that the Obama administration had lost its appetite for a prolonged diplomatic row by accepting just one of Mrs Clinton's demands in full as he agreed to make a "confidence-building" gesture to the Palestinians

He refused to cancel construction of 1,600 settler homes which lie at the heart of the crisis, offering instead to delay their construction - a proposal understood already to have been made and rejected

Instead, he reportedly proposed to continue building, but in secret.

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, appeared to warn Israel it must comply with international demands.

But according to a diplomatic source, Mr Netanyahu would be wrong to assume that he had succeeded in forcing the president to back down.

"Netanyahu thinks that Obama has blinked, but he's wrong," the source said.
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