Damascus  - An Egyptian proposal to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip would serve Israel rather than help Hamas, a statement by the Islamist Palestinian movement said Thursday.

"This initiative seeks limiting the Palestinian resistance while freeing the Israeli occupation and helping it achieve some of the goals it failed to achieve by its military attack," Hamas said.

"We also refuse to deploy international forces in the strip or international supervisors," the statement added.

Tel Aviv - The hardline, opposition Likud party of former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu is gaining ground amid the fighting in Gaza, according to an opinion poll published Thursday, one month before elections are scheduled in Israel on February 10.

If the elections were held today, Likud would become the largest party in the 120-seat Israeli parliament, obtaining some 33 mandates against some 27 for the ruling, centrist Kadima party of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the poll predicted.

While earlier in the campaign the Likud also led Kadima, according to other polls published two and three weeks ago, Kadima had managed to bridged the gap.

New Delhi - India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday strongly condemned Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip and expressed hope that the world community will work together to restore peace in the region.

In his first public statement on the ongoing attacks, Singh said India strongly condemns the incidents and regrets the loss of many innocent lives.

"It is our hope that the international community would get together and help restore peace in the region as soon as possible," Singh told a meeting in the southern city of Chennai.

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Israel pressed on with both its air and ground offensive in Gaza on Thursday, as government officials were due to travel to Cairo to discuss Egyptian-French truce proposals.

Residents reported heavy shelling in the southern Gaza border town of Rafah overnight, as an Israeli military spokesman said Israel bombed another 15 smuggling tunnels running under the border with Egypt, as well as what he said was the house of a militant commander who oversaw the rocket attacks from the Rafah area at nearby Israeli targets.

Tel Aviv/Gaza  - Israel dropped leaflets over Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip Wednesday, telling resident to leave the area until the next morning.

Witnesses said thousands of people fled after the leaflets were dropped. Some were heading to the northern part of the city, farther away from the border where many tunnels used for smuggling are located.

One witness said more than 100,000 leaflets were dropped and many of the residents were seeking refuge at UN schools in the area.

Jerusalem  - Israel told foreign diplomats Wednesday that Palestinian militants had not fired rockets from within a United Nations' school, a UN official said.

Israeli military officials said on Tuesday that militants had fired rockets from within the school, and that attack provoked Israeli artillery fire which landed near the school and killed more than 40 Palestinians in the Jabalia refugee camp, many of whom were seeking refuge from fighting.