Gaza City /Tel Aviv - Top Israeli diplomats were heading for Washington and once again to Cairo to work out the details of a truce in Gaza, as fighting in the strip continued Friday and the Palestinian death toll topped 1,100.

As Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni left Thursday night for the US to sign an agreement on joint intelligence cooperation against weapons smuggling to Gaza, another senior official, Amos Gilad, was returning to Egypt where he had heard Hamas' position on an Egyptian ceasefire initiative on Thursday.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who spent the night in Jerusalem, was also due to travel to the nearby West Bank city of Ramallah for talks with Palestinian caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Washington  - President-elect Barack Obama's early handling of the conflict in the Gaza Strip will serve as his first opportunity to set a fresh tone for US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Unless Egyptian brokered negotations - which are progressing - produce a ceasefire by the time Obama takes office on Tuesday, he will inherit more than three weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in a conflict that has threatened to undo the already shaky peace process.

Tel Aviv  - While the Israeli offensive rages in the Gaza Strip, political spectators in Israel are asking what impact the conflict will have on upcoming elections.

The outcome of Operation Cast Lead will play a big role in determining the results of the election, now little more than three weeks away, as voters decide if the offensive has indeed changed "the security reality" of southern Israeli towns and villages that have been targeted by rockets from the Gaza Strip.

Riyadh  - Seeking unity on the crisis in Gaza ahead of an event next week in Kuwait, leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states gathered in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

"The Riyadh meeting helped the Gulf states adopt a united stance towards the situation in Gaza," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told a press briefing after the GCC summit ended.

New York - The outspoken UN General Assembly president on Thursday accused the world body of "direct complicity" in the tragedy unfolding in Gaza Strip, which began
19 months ago with the Israeli blockade of the territory with 1.5 million Palestinians.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the 192-nation assembly, opened a one-day debate on the crisis in Gaza, lashing out at Israel and some UN Security Council members for the current fighting.

He said the UN has failed to protect the population in Gaza.

Gaza City - Israeli ground troops pushed deep into southern Gaza City Thursday, advancing as far as 1.5 kilometres from the city centre amid heavy tank shelling, residents said.

The ground forces were "very close" to the city's Islamic University and its United Nations headquarters, a local Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa correspondent said, adding that he was sheltering with his family inside a home in the central Rimal neighbourhood with the troops fighting nearby.

Backed by tanks firing large numbers of shells, the Israeli troops, concentrating in the southern Tel el-Hawa neighbourhood just south of Rimal, fought heavy battles with local militants.