Gaza conflict: both sides appear to eye ceasefire Diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire are intensifying as both US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon are due for talks in Jerusalem. Gaza/Israel US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is expected to fly to Israel on Tuesday for talks with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, Reuters reports. "Secretary of state Hillary Clinton will arrive this evening and meet with Netanyahu tomorrow," a source said. Israeli aircraft have hit the headquarters of a bank in Gaza set up by Hamas to sidestep international sanctions, AP reports. The inside of the Islamic National Bank in Gaza City, and a building supply business in the basement was damaged. Negotiations in Cairo focused on securing a package that would allow both warring parties to claim some kind of victory. Barack Obama phoned leaders in the Middle East to push ceasefire on Monday night as the US navy was reported to be deploying three ships to the eastern Mediterranean in case American citizens had to be evacuated from Israel. After a cabinet meeting last night Israel indicated it would prefer to find a diplomatic solution rather than launching a widely-feared ground invasion. A senior Israeli official told Reuters: "Before deciding on a ground invasion, the prime minister intends to exhaust the diplomatic move in order to see if a long-term ceasefire can be achieved." But he added: "If diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces." Both sides in the negotiations want to be able to point to something tangible from the blood-letting, writes Ian Black. Hamas wants a guarantee from Israel that it would end "targeted assassinations" of the kind that killed Ahmed al-Jaabari last Wednesday. It would also need pledges about opening crossing points into Egypt and Israel - effectively lifting the five year blockade. Israel is insisting at a minimum on stopping the cross-border rocket fire which has united public opinion behind Operation Defensive Pillar. Israeli casualties have been low because the weapons are inaccurate and many of them were quickly destroyed. Russia has suggested that the US is blocking a UN security council statement condemning the escalating violence. The draft statement says: "The members of the Security Council deplored the loss of civilian lives resulting from this escalation and emphasized that the civilian populations must be protected." Israel has denied that it has used disproportionate force in a conflict that has killed more than 100 Palestinians and three Israelis. Writing in the Guardian deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said Israel will not allow its citizens' lives to be endangered. He wrote: Israel has successfully targeted in excess of 1,300 weapons caches, rocket launchers and other elements of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure. Yet despite this, the number of Palestinian casualties remains around one for every 13 strikes, the majority killed being active members of Hamas and combatants. The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, has accused Arab governments of acting like sheep over the Gaza conflict and urged them to send arms to Hamas, Beirut's Daily Star reports. It quotes him saying: "Israel is betting that the resistance in Gaza will use all the rockets in its possession ... Arab countries should send arms to Gaza to enhance the resistance's chances in resisting the aggression rather than just act as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians. Islamist rebel groups in Aleppo say they reject the new Western-backed opposition coalition as the UK appears poised to grant it full recognition, the BBC reports. In an internet video one of the groups denounced what they called "the conspiratorial project" and said they intend to establish an "Islamist state" in Syria. Syrian rebels said they had seized the headquarters of an army battalion near the southern gate of Damascus on Monday, the nearest military base to the capital reported to have fallen to opposition fighters in a 20-month revolt. The Islamist rebel groups Ansar al-Islam and Jund Allah Brigades said in a statement that they had taken the Air Defence Battalion base near Hajar al-Aswad after four days of fighting.