well when oil trading is 70% speculation...

MADRID (MarketWatch) -- As Israel marked the fourth day of a fierce air assault on Gaza, the country's interior minister Meir Sheetrit rejected the possibility of a ceasefire, vowing the attacks will continue until the threat of rockets from Hamas is completely eliminated.
"The Israeli army must not stop the operation before breaking the will of the Palestinians, of Hamas, to continue to fire at Israel," Sheetrit told Israel Radio on Tuesday, according to a report from BBC News.

Israeli ground forces were massed on the border of the coastal enclave, braced for a possible invasion, the Washington Post reported.

In another interview, Matan Vilnai, a deputy defense minister, said the military has "made preparations for long weeks of action," the BBC said. On Tuesday, Israeli jets reportedly attacked targets linked to the Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, hitting numerous government buildings and security installations.

Israel has allowed trucks loaded with supplies to enter Gaza but a UN official says not enough is being done to prevent a humanitarian crisis. Video courtesy of Reuters.Forty people were said to be injured in Tuesday's action, with the death toll now topping 360 since Saturday. Hamas has reported more than 300 Palestinians dead since the start of action on Saturday, while the United Nations says 56 civilians have died in Israel's fiercest air assault on Gaza in decades.
On Monday, the Bush administration and top congressional Democrats blamed the militant Hamas group for the flare up in the Gaza Strip. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid echoed the Bush administration's statements. "I strongly support Israel's right to defend its citizens against rockets and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza," Reid said in a statement.

European Union foreign ministers are due to meet in Paris at 5:30 pm GMT on Tuesday to discuss the mounting crisis, the BBC reported. Hosted by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, the meeting is expected to try to figure out a humanitarian aid corridor to bring aid to Gaza's population of 1.5 million.

Israel has said it would allow more aid trucks in to Gaza, with dozens seen headed towards early on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.

Angry protests have been taking place across the Arab world and in many European cities to protest the offensive.

The escalation of violence in the region pushed crude prices 6% higher in electronic trading on Globex on Monday, on worries the violence could trigger disruption to crude supplies from the Middle East. Those gains proved short-lived, however, and on Tuesday, the price of crude was down 77 cents to $39.25 in Globex electronic trading.