GAZA CITY - ISRAELI jets carried out a fresh wave of air strikes across the Gaza Strip late on Wednesday, killing at least 13 Palestinians, including a 13-year-old boy, medics and witnesses said.

Three civilians were also killed in a house east of Khan Yunis in the centre of the narrow coastal strip while the 13-year-old died in a strike on the Sabra neighbourhood in southwestern Gaza City, in the north.

Medics said that two suspected militants were also killed in bombing around the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza in a strike that also wounded two cameraman from a Hamas television channel.

At least one person was killed in another attack, in Gaza City's Tel El-Hawa neighbourhood. Witnesses said that several people were injured in a separate strike in the same area on a United Nations vehicle.

After UN chief Ban Ki Moon arrived in the region seeking to end a war now in its 19th day, diplomats said Hamas has accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, although the Islamists merely indicated support for its broad outlines.

The head of Gaza's emergency services Moawiya Hassanein said 1,033 people have been killed in the Hamas-run territory while a further 4,850 people have been wounded since the December 27 launch of Operation Cast Lead.

The Israeli army said the air force struck nine rocket launch pads and three smuggling tunnels as they pushed on with their bid to prevent the Islamists from firing rockets and missiles across the border.

A total of 15 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel from Gaza, the army said, a fraction of the rockets fired at the start of the war on December 27.

A senior Israeli defence official said that the war, which has killed some 400 civilians and has sparked outrage across the Muslim world, could well continue until the January 20 inauguration of US president-elect Barack Obama.

'Israel is still waiting for guarantees on solving the issue of weapon smuggling and things are moving in Cairo,' he said on condition of anonymity.

'Nevertheless, Israel is not feeling any pressure at this point to end the operation,' he added.

Hamas has remained defiant throughout the campaign, with its prime minister Ismail Haniya insisting earlier this week that it was nearing victory over the Jewish state.

But a Gaza-based leader of the Islamist group said following talks with officials in Cairo that it did not reject the 'broad outlines' of an Egyptian-brokered truce plan, without accepting the plan outright.

'President (Hosni) Mubarak's vision is the only one that was proposed, we don't ask for any amendment to its broad outlines,' Mr Salah al-Bardawil told journalists in Cairo.

He said Hamas has 'presented to the Egyptian leadership our detailed vision', despite the fact that Egyptian and Spanish diplomats said Hamas had accepted the plan.

The Islamists' vision will be put to senior Israeli defence official Amos Gilad when he visits Cairo on Thursday to discuss the initiative.

Israel has made ending the offensive conditional on a complete halt to rocket fire against the south of the country and stemming arms smuggling from Egypt into Gaza.

But a senior US State Department said that Hamas has yet to meet the terms for a ceasefire.

'It's not a done deal yet. They're still working it. There are a number of Hamas conditions that are having to be dealt with,' the official said on condition of anonymity after the White House voiced scepticism about Hamas.

In Cairo, Mr Ban again pleaded for 'an immediate and durable ceasefire,' at the start of a trip that will take him to Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and an Arab League summit next Monday in Kuwait.

The diplomatic fallout from Israeli's deadliest ever offensive in the impoverished strip became evident when a senior European Union official said talks on upgrading ties with the Jewish state have been put on hold.

'Both sides realise it is a convenient time for a time-out,' Ramiro Cibrian-Uzal, head of the European Commission delegation to Israel, said.

And Bolivian President Evo Morales said his country had severed ties with Israel to protest the Gaza war, following the January 6 decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his socialist ally, to expel Israel's ambassador.

In a recording posted on the Internet entitled 'A Call for Jihad to Stop Aggression Against Gaza', Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden called for a holy war to restore 'Jerusalem and Palestine'.

The Al-Qaeda leader also criticised the Arab handling of the Gaza conflict.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or by rocket attacks since December 27.

The offensive has sparked widespread concern about a humanitarian crisis breaking out in one of the world's most densely populated places where the vast majority of the 1.5 million population depends on foreign aid.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, speaking after a visit to Gaza's main hospital, described the situation as 'shocking'.

Meanwhile rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into northern Israel on Wednesday without causing injuries or damage, with no group claiming responsibility for the second such attack in less than a week. -- AFP