WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the quartet of Middle East peace brokers consulted by telephone on Tuesday on how to end the crisis in Gaza, a State Department official said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana were expected to join a conference call that began at 11:30 a.m. EST (1630 GMT), the U.S. official said. The official, who spoke on condition he was not named, had no further details about the call, which follows four days of Israeli air attacks on Gaza and rocket fire by Hamas militants deep inside the Jewish state. Russian news agencies quoted Moscow's envoy in Middle East talks, Sergei Yakovlev, as saying that the foreign ministers would look at ways to "halt fire in the spirit of U.N. Security Council's decisions." State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said earlier that Rice had made about a dozen calls over the past 24 hours to discuss Gaza, speaking to foreign minsters from Israel and Saudi Arabia to Britain, as well as Jordan's King Abdullah and others. "She's working extremely hard to try and get both sides to agree that a ceasefire can be reestablished and that that ceasefire can be fully respected," Duguid told reporters. Israel has said its military action into Hamas-ruled Gaza could last for weeks. Medical officials put Palestinian casualties since Saturday at 383 dead and more than 800 wounded. Four Israelis have been killed since the operation began.(Reporting by Sue Pleming, additional reporting by Moscow bureau, Editing by Frances Kerry)
Israeli soldiers stand atop a tank outside the central Gaza Strip December 30, 2008. Israel hit the Gaza Strip with more air strikes on Tuesday and said its military action could ...
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