United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel for "excessive and disproportionate" use of force in the Gaza Strip after Israeli military strikes in the territory on Saturday killed 54 more people, nearly half of them civilians.

Speaking ahead of a UN Security Council meeting requested late Saturday by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Ban also condemned continued rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in Gaza on southern Israel, which he labelled "acts of terrorism."

"While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, I condemn the disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children … I call on Israel to cease such attacks," Reuters quoted Ban as saying. "I condemn Palestinian rocket attacks and call for the immediate cessation of such acts of terrorism."

Ban's comments come just hours after Palestinian leaders reportedly suspended Mideast peace talks in response to the escalating violence in the coastal territory.

Saturday's deaths pushed the Palestinian death toll to 84 since renewed fighting flared on Wednesday; those four days have seen some of the bloodiest violence since Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

Two Israeli soldiers were also killed and seven wounded during Saturday's incursion, the army said — its first deaths in Gaza since October.

Hours later, witnesses reported early Sunday that Israeli helicopters fired three missiles at the office building of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who Abbas fired as Palestinian Authority president last year, destroying the facility. The office was empty and no casualties were reported, according to the Associated Press.

Six Israeli civilians were wounded Saturday as Palestinians bombarded southern Israel with at least 50 rockets and mortar rounds, hospital officials said. The rockets have been fired at the coastal city of Ashkelon and surrounding communities, 17 kilometres north of Gaza.

The foreign-made Katyusha rockets launched into southern Israel in recent days have a longer range and greater accuracy than the homemade Qassam variety that have been fired from the territory almost daily over the past few months, the CBC's Peter Armstrong reported Saturday from Jerusalem.  

Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Palestinian leaders, including the Western-backed president, decided to suspend the peace talks at a meeting on Saturday in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Qureia later informed Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the decision, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The West Bank-based Abbas, who has had no authority in Gaza since Hamas seized control of the coastal territory by force last June, condemned the civilian deaths and called on the UN Security Council to convene for emergency discussions.

"The response to these rockets can't be that harsh and heinous," Abbas said late Saturday. "It is nowadays described as a holocaust."

Qureia said the bloodshed in Gaza amounts to a massacre of civilians.

Palestinian medics carry a man wounded during an Israeli army operation in the northern Gaza Strip.
(Khalil Hamra/Associated Press)

"We can't bear what the Israelis are doing, and what the Israelis are doing doesn't lend the peace process any credibility," he said.

Barak pledges to continue offensive

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called a late-night meeting of security commanders, his office said in a statement.

While expressing regret for civilian casualties, Barak blamed "Hamas and those firing rockets at Israel," the statement said, pledging to continue the offensive to protect Israeli towns and cities.

In Jerusalem, foreign ministry officials were meeting to discuss the violence in Gaza and its implications for the talks.

Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said as far as Israel was concerned, talks are "based on the understanding that when advancing the peace process with pragmatic [Palestinian] sources, Israel will continue to fight terror that hurts its people."

The spike in violence comes as Israel was threatening to launch a broad invasion of Gaza, and just days before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arrive in the region on her latest peacekeeping mission.

Not all of the Gazans killed on Saturday were immediately identified, but at least 13 militants and 16 civilians died, including a 17-year-old girl and her 16-year-old brother, a 45-year-old man and his 20-year-old son, and two sisters thought to be in their early 20s.

The latest violence began before midnight Friday in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, where a 13-month-old girl, Malak Karfaneh, was killed by shrapnel. Hamas blamed Israel, but residents said a militant rocket launched at Israel fell short and landed near the baby's house.

The Israeli military, which sent troops, tanks and aircraft into the area to target Gaza rocket squads, said it only attacks rocket-launching operations, but said militants sometimes operate within civilian areas.

An Israeli rescue worker and residents are seen through a hole in the roof of an apartment after it was hit with a rocket in the coastal city of Ashkelon on Saturday.
(Tsafrir Abayov/Associated Press)

The military nevertheless said it would look into reports of tank shells hitting houses.

On Friday, Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai renewed a threat to invade Gaza to crush militant rocket squads that attack southern Israel daily.

Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in November, after a seven-year breakdown, at a U.S.-sponsored conference. At the gathering, the two sides pledged to try to reach an accord by the end of this year. In recent weeks, negotiators have met almost daily.

Bernier calls for end to violence

In a statement released Saturday, Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said Canada was deeply concerned about the escalation of violence.

Bernier said Hamas and other groups launching rocket attacks "are determined to target civilians and create even more instability and misery," while adding that Israel had a right to defend itself.

But Bernier also expressed concern over the "impact on civilians of measures taken by Israel, such as increased military operations, restrictions on border crossings and reductions in the delivery of vital goods and services."

Pitched battles erupted Saturday near the Gaza town of Jebaliya, pitting Israeli troops backed by tanks and attack aircraft against Palestinian militants launching crude rockets and mortars.

In response to the fighting, the United Nations closed down 37 schools it runs in the northern Gaza Strip, affecting some 40,000 students, said Christopher Gunness, a UN official.

Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Israel was "compelled to continue to take these defensive measures" to protect more than 200,000 Israelis living under the threat of Palestinian rocket barrages.

Militants "hide behind their own civilians, using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centres," Baker said. "They bear the responsibility for the results."

U.S., European envoys expected

Israel evacuated its troops and settlers from Gaza in late 2005, but militants proceeded to fire rockets from the abandoned territory. Militants raised the stakes significantly by firing foreign-made rockets into Ashkelon, a coastal city of 120,000 people.

While Ashkelon had been targeted sporadically before, it never suffered direct hits. The assault increased the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to protect a widening circle of people at risk.

Next week, Rice plans to visit the region to try to prod Israel and moderate Palestinians forward in their bid to reach a peace accord by the end of the year. The two sides declared that goal at a U.S.-sponsored conference in November.

Senior European diplomat Javier Solana will also visit the region beginning Sunday to encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to keep the peace process on track, his office said in a statement.

With files from the Associated Press