One Palestinian civilian died and over a dozen rockets hit southern Israel early Sunday morning just hours after Israel implemented a unilateral ceasefire halting its three-week military incursion into Gaza.

'If only my three daughters will be the last victims of this horrible conflict,' wept Dr. Ezzadin Abu Al-Aish, a Palestinian gynaecologist recovering from his wounds in Tel Aviv's Tel Hashomer hospital. An Israeli tank shell killed three of his nine children aged 20, 15 and 14 as well as a 14-year-old niece in their home in the Jebaliya refugee camp Saturday. Israel says its forces were responding to sniper fire.

The three-week-old war in Gaza - halted Saturday by an Israeli ceasefire - has had a polarising effect on the U.S. Jewish community, resulting in a deeper and at times acrimonious split between dovish groups that are sceptical of the Israeli military campaign, and centrist and hawkish groups that have been broadly supportive of it.

Just as the foreign policy of U.S. President George W. Bush was characterised by a continuous battle for control between hawks led by Vice President Dick Cheney and realists based primarily in the State Department and intelligence community - and, in its last two years, the Pentagon - so the incoming of administration may find itself split along ideological lines.

As Israel's military aggression in Gaza stretched to nearly a month, the 192-member U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution Friday evening calling for an immediate ceasefire.

The leftist FMLN is the front-runner in the polls for Sunday’s parliamentary and municipal elections in El Salvador, and analysts say a victory would boost its chances of winning the Mar. 15 presidential elections.

'Did you know they want to throw God out of Bolivia?' asks a television spot frequently broadcast by opponents of leftwing Bolivian President Evo Morales ahead of the Jan. 25 referendum on constitutional reform.

A French weapons firm has acknowledged for the first time that it has sold stun-guns to Senegal, where they have been reportedly used against journalists covering football matches and political protests.

Since the outset of Israel's war on the Gaza Strip, calls have been renewed for an 'international force' to protect the civilian population. But Palestinian resistance factions, chief among them Hamas, reject the idea outright.

A work of art exhibited this week in Brussels has turned out to be an unusual test for whether some Europeans are able to laugh at themselves. Just as the artist intended.