Gaza City/Tel Aviv  - Israel's cabinet approved Sunday plans to call up more than 6,000 reserve soldiers, raising the possibility that the two-day old offensive against the radical Hamas movement in in the Gaza Strip could include a ground operation as well as air strikes.

The Israel Air Force, however, kept up its attacks on the enclave, hitting, among other targets, Gaza City's main security compound, which houses a central prison and several security force headquarters.

Damascus  - A Syrian official said Sunday that Syria will suspend indirect peace talks with Israel after Israeli attacks on Gaza that killed more than 280 people, as thousands protested in Damascus, Al-Arabiya TV reported.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had said that direct talks between the two countries are possible, if ongoing indirect talks proved fruitful. Over the last couple of months, Turkey has been acting as a mediator for indirect talks.

A key point of contention between Israel and Syria is the Golan Heights, which Israel took from Syria in the 1967 war and still occupies

Meanwhile, thousands of people protested in Syria, demanding a halt to the raids.

Gaza City/Tel Aviv  - Israel bombed Gaza City's main security compound, which houses a central prison and several security forces headquarters, Sunday morning, killing four people, on the second day of an offensive against the Islamic Hamas movement.

The latest deaths bring to 282 the number of Palestinians, many of them militants, killed since Israel began the offensive shortly before noon on Saturday morning. Over 900 people have been wounded.

Prisoners were seen scrambling over the rubble and fleeing the security compound after the Israeli strike.

Israeli aircraft have struck over 22 times since midnight, after the Israel Air Force hit more than 100 targets in Saturday's sorties.

Gaza City  - An Israeli airstrike

Amman - A Jordanian plan to send humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has been delayed until January so that it does not conflict with the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The Islamic Action Front (IAF), Jordan's largest political party, had planned to send the ship on Thursday, which is Christmas Day, in an attempt at "breaking the siege" Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip.

However, European lawmakers and other activists who agreed to be on board the ship when it sails from the Red Sea port of Aqaba asked to be given time "to celebrate Christmas and New Year."

Jerusalem  - Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Israel would respond to a surge in rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip Wednesday.

"It is clear that this fire only sharpens what we have said all the time. There cannot be a situation in which it has been agreed that there is calm (a truce), but at the same time the reality on the ground is complete different," he told reporters as he cast his vote in a primary of his ruling Kadima party.

"Of course this requires us to relate to it and will relate to it," he said.