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Huge explosions shook Gaza City as Israeli planes bombed three government buildings and the parliament on the sixth day of the Israeli offensive. On the diplomatic side, both Israel and Hamas are resisting international pressure to agree to a ceasefire. NPR's Mike Shuster talks with Steve Inskeep about the situation in Gaza.

The conflict in Gaza presents a challenge for the incoming Obama administration, which already was facing a packed Middle East agenda. Leslie Gelb tells Steve Inskeep that the question now is whether the situation in Gaza will make it harder for President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises of active peacemaking between the Israelis and Palestinians. Gelb is a former state and defense department official and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Three Middle East experts discuss how the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza might end. Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Ambassador Edward Djerejian, director of the James Baker Institute of Public Policy at Rice University, and Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, offer their insight.

Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip for a third day Monday. The death toll in Gaza surpassed 300, with at least 1,000 wounded. U.N. officials say more than 80 of the Palestinian dead are civilians. Two Israeli civilians are known to have died so far in Hamas rocket attacks.

Throughout the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, Gaza was the forgotten conflict. Israeli forces have been attacking targets there since the end of June, when a soldier was captured by Palestinian militants. Now two Fox News journalists have been abducted.

Israeli planes have blasted the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza City. Israel is intensifying pressure on Islamic militants to order the release of a captured soldier. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Friday that Israel's offensive in Gaza was part of a premeditated plan to bring down the Hamas-led government.

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, about Iran, Lebanon and the ceasefire.

Escalating violence in Gaza has many Palestinians fearful of all-out civil war. The violent power struggle between the rival Fatah and Hamas parties has killed several people and wounded dozens more in the Gaza Strip in the last five days.

NPR's Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem reports on violence in the Gaza Strip today. Israeli tanks and bulldozers pushed into a Palestinian refugee camp, demolishing 20 buildings Israel says were used by Palestinian gunmen for cover.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports after a week of intense Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians are beginning to question whether their armed rebellion will succeed against the overwhelming firepower of the Israelis. But many Palestinians still say there's no alternative.

Israeli forces launched a second incursion into Gaza today, destroying a Palestinian police station. This incursion was smaller and briefer than yesterday's. Meanwhile, the Israeli press accuses Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of buckling under U.S. pressure because he unexpectedly called off yesterday's incursion when Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized it as "excessive and disproportionate." Robert Siegel talks with NPR's Jennifer Ludden.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden in Gaza reports Israeli troops and tanks stormed into Palestinian refugee camp early today. It was Israel's first military incursion into Palestinian-ruled territory since the violence began last September.