By Douglas Hamilton NEAR GAZA BORDER, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Waking at dawn in a field of churned up earth near the border with Gaza, Israeli soldiers uncrease their limbs from a night spent inside armoured vehicles and listen for the sound of air strikes or answering rocket blasts from the Palestinians. Tanks, armoured bulldozers, hulking mine-clearers and personnel carriers cluster like beetles in the fertile kibbutz farmland up and down the frontier of the 40 km (25 mile) coastal strip, ready to roll if Israel gives the order. A little further south, rows of self-propelled artillery in desert paint sit behind a line of trees, cannon pointed in Gaza's direction. If its air force alone cannot compel Hamas-led Islamist militants in Gaza to stop firing rockets at southern towns and cities, Israel says it has the right to invade the enclave it handed back to the Palestinians in 2005 after 38 years of occupation. "Whatever means can be used, will be used," said an army spokesman, using a time-honoured formulation that keeps all options open without answering the question: are they going in? On Tuesday, there was no sign of forward movement across the 2,000 or 3,000 metres (about 2 miles) separating the bunched Israeli armour from the border. During the night, the distant thump of air strikes was audible from Gaza. The furniture shook in a kibbutz cabin when the occasional Gaza rocket struck. Watching televised scenes of death and devastation from Gaza, where some 400 Palestinians have been killed over the past three days, it is hard to believe the war is just 20 minutes drive away. The eucalyptus, palms and parasol pines are fragrant in the afternoon sunshine. Then the alarm sounds "Code Red", warning of a rocket's impact within seconds in southern Israel, followed quickly by two loud blasts, as people run for the nearest of the little hard shelters that dot the countryside here. This is the threat that Israel is determined to eliminate. These rockets are the militants' main weapon in their fight against the Jewish state they reject. On busy Highway 232, running north-south close to the Gaza border, food is competing with firepower for road space. About 100 trucks carrying flour, cooking oil and other humanitarian aid share the two-land tarmac with heavy tank transporters bringing more military hardware to the front. Israeli soldiers drag their heavy packs out of buses over to their armoured vehicles in a field. The devout don shawls and pray. The secular read the tabloids and smoke. The atmosphere is relaxed, for now. There is an occasional Israeli artillery round, the rattle of an unpiloted drone surveillance craft overhead. A helium-filled blimps drifts against a background of clouds, spying over Gaza with a secret array of high-tech sensors. Traffic is snarled near Beeri as local cars and pickup trucks slow down to survey the gathering force and MPs stop civilian movement to let their heavy vehicles manoeuvre 70-tonne tanks to the edge of the fields. "No news, good news. We want the shooting to stop," says a peace activist from a group called Noah's Ark. Then there is a distant bang. "Take our picture please," he asks politely. "Make sure the tanks are in the background." (Reporting by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
School girls shout slogans during an anti-Israeli protest in Sanaa December 30, 2008. Yemeni protesters angered by Cairo's cooperation with Israel in imposing a blockade on Gaza stormed the Egyptian consulate ...
