The US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, has said Washington is committed to “actively and aggressively” seeking lasting peace.

He announced that President Barack Obama had directed him to spend $20.3m (£14.1m) on food and medical aid to the wounded and displaced in Gaza.

Mr Mitchell is on a regional tour aimed at consolidating ceasefires declared by Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza.

Earlier, Mr Mitchell met Israeli politicians and intelligence officials.

These included Isaac Herzog, Israel’s current welfare minister, and the leader of the opposition Likud party, Binyamin Netanyahu.

Mr Netanyahu is the leading candidate to be Israel’s next prime minister.

Mr Mitchell has held previous talks with Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Later on Friday he is due to travel to the Jordanian capital, Amman.

‘Difficulties ahead’

Mr Mitchell spoke at an United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) warehouse in front of pallets loaded with aid bound for Gaza.

He announced that Mr Obama had earmarked the $20.3m for aid to Gaza on top of $40m allocated to humanitarian programmes there since hostilities broke out in late December.

“The United States remains committed to actively and aggressively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians as well as between Israel and its Arab neighbours,” he said.

“The tragic violence in Gaza and in south Israel offers a sobering reminder of the very serious and difficult challenges and, unfortunately, the setbacks that will come.

“It is important to consolidate a sustainable and durable ceasefire while addressing immediately humanitarian needs,” he said.

On Thursday Mr Mitchell met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Following the meeting he called for Israel to open the crossing points into Gaza and for the Palestinian Authority to participate in a border regime in Gaza that prevents, Hamas, the militant group that controls the territory, from rearming.

Many see Mr Mitchell’s presence as a sign that the US is re-engaging - but few expect to see much progress soon, as Israel is in an election campaign with the right-wing Likud ahead in the polls, BBC Jerusalem correspondent Bethany Bell says.

On Thursday the United Nations launched an appeal for $613m to help people affected by Israel’s three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The offensive, which ended on 18 January, killed about 1,300 Palestinians, of whom 412 were children; 21,000 homes were destroyed or badly damaged.

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the three weeks of violence.

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has hit southern Israel, exploding near the city of Ashkelon, the Israeli military has said.

No casualties were reported from the rocket, which landed in a field.

It is one of several rocket attacks from the territory since Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza, declared ceasefires on 18 January.

The ceasefires ended Israel’s three-week offensive in Gaza, which was aimed at stopping rocket attacks on Israel.

The ceasefires, independently declared by each side, have been violated several times.

An Israeli soldier was killed in a bomb attack on the Gaza border on Tuesday. Israel responded with air raids and a brief ground incursion by soldiers and tanks.

US envoy

About 1,300 Palestinians and 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in the three weeks of Gaza fighting. Three Israeli citizens died in rocket attacks.

Israel wants the rocket attacks to end and wants to prevent militants in Gaza from being able to rearm.

Hamas wants the border crossings into Gaza to be fully opened to end a 18-month blockade of Gaza which has wrecked its economy.

US President Barack Obama has sent his Middle East envoy George Mitchell to the region to “vigorously” pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

He has arrived in Jordan after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He has no plans to meet leaders of Hamas, which Israel, the US and the European Union consider a terrorist group.

The Egyptians have been leading efforts to broker a permanent ceasefire by holding separate talks with officials from Israel and Hamas.

Iraqis are electing new provincial councils in the first nationwide vote in four years, with the Sunni minority expected to turn out in strength.

After a slow start, correspondents said voting was brisk, including among Sunni Muslims, who largely boycotted the last elections.

The vote is seen as a test of Iraq’s stability ahead of a general election due later this year.

Security is tight and thousands of observers are monitoring the polls.

Up to 15 million Iraqis are eligible to cast votes.

“This is a great chance for us, a great day, to be able to vote freely without any pressure or interference,” a Baghdad voter identified as Hamid told Reuters news agency.

Security tight

The BBC’s Jim Muir in Baghdad said voters had to pass through stringent security checks to reach the polling stations, which were mostly set up in schools.

As voting got underway, several mortar rounds landed near polling stations in Tikrit, hometown of late ruler Saddam Hussein, but no casualties were reported.

Hundreds of international observers are monitoring the vote, as well as thousands of local observers from the various political parties.

At least eight of the 14,000 candidates have been killed in the run up to the election.

Three of the candidates - all Sunni Muslims - were killed on Thursday, in Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala province.

While the recent level of violence around Iraq is significantly lower than in past years, Iraq’s international borders have been shut, traffic bans are in place across Baghdad and major cities, and curfews have been introduced.

Hundreds of women, including teachers and civic workers, have also been recruited to help search women voters after a rise in female suicide bombers last year, according to the Associated Press.

Iraqi and US military commanders have in recent days warned that al-Qaeda poses a threat to the elections.

After a slow start to voting, the pace picked up and there was a holiday atmosphere among voters walking to the polling stations, our correspondent says.

Setting the stage

The turnout is expected to be strong even in Sunni areas.

The head of the Iraqi electoral commission in Anbar province - a centre of the Sunni resistance to the US occupation - said he was expecting a 60% turnout.

Fewer than 2% voted in the 2005 election, with the result that Shia and Kurdish parties took control of parliament.

Some Sunnis, like Khaled al-Azemi, said the boycott last time had been a mistake.

“We lost a lot because we didn’t vote and we saw the result - sectarian violence” he told the BBC.

“That’s why we want to vote now to avoid the mistakes of the past.”

The drawing of alienated Sunnis back into the political arena is one of the big changes these elections will crystallise, the BBC’s Jim Muir reports from Baghdad.

On the Shia side, the results will also be closely watched amid signs that many voters intend to turn away from the big religious factions and towards nationalist or secular ones.

If they pass off relatively peacefully, these elections will set the stage for general polls at the end of the year and for further coalition troop withdrawals, our correspondent says.

The election is also being seen as a quasi-referendum on the leadership of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

“This is a victory for all the Iraqis,” he said after casting his vote in Baghdad’s highly-protected Green Zone. “I call on all my Iraqi brothers and sisters to vote.”

Saturday’s elections are being held in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces, with more than 14,000 candidates competing for just 440 seats.

There is no vote in the three provinces of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of the north and the ballot has been postponed in oil-rich Kirkuk province.

Iraq’s provincial councils are responsible for nominating the governors who lead the administration and oversee finance and reconstruction projects.

The Israeli military says it has “severely reprimanded” an officer who distributed a booklet to troops that advised they show no mercy to enemies.

The unnamed officer distributed the booklet to troops during the Israeli offensive in Gaza. It said the soldiers were fighting “murderers”.

The military said its chief rabbi, Gen Avichai Rontzki, did not know of the booklet before it was given out.

A rights group said the booklet bordered on “incitement to racism”.

The army described the case as an isolated incident.

The booklet cites an ultra-nationalist civilian rabbi who supports the Jewish settler movement in the West Bank.

The rights group, Yesh Din, said the booklet’s contents could be “interpreted as a call to act outside the confines of international laws of war”.

Turkey’s prime minister has stormed off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos after a heated debate on Gaza with Israel’s president.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with Shimon Peres, whose voice had risen as he made an impassioned defence of Israel’s actions, jabbing his finger.
Mr Erdogan said Mr Peres had spoken so loudly to conceal his “guilt”.
He accused the moderator of not allowing him to speak and said he did not think he would return to Davos.
The Turkish PM stressed later that he had left the debate not because of his disagreements with Mr Peres but because he had been given much less time to speak than the Israeli leader.
Turkey is one of the few Muslim countries to have dealings with Israel, but relations have been under strain since the Islamist-rooted AK Party was elected to power in 2002.
Late on Thursday, a WEF official said that Mr Peres and Mr Erdogan had spoken by mobile telephone, and both men now considered the matter closed.
Dinner time
In the debate, Mr Erdogan was cut off as he attempted to reply to Mr Peres.

Earlier the Turkish Prime Minister had made an address himself, describing Gaza as an “open-air prison”.
When the audience applauded Mr Peres, he said: “I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. You killed people. And I think that it is very wrong.”
The moderator, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, had given him a minute to reply, then asked him to finish, saying that people needed to go to dinner.
“I do not think I will be coming back to Davos after this because you do not let me speak,” Mr Erdogan shouted before marching off the stage in front of Mr Peres, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and an elite audience of ministers and international officials.
Mr Peres had told the audience Israel was forced on to the offensive against Hamas by thousands of rockets and mortars fired into Israel.
“The tragedy of Gaza is not Israel, it is Hamas,” the Israeli leader said.
“Why did they fire rockets? There was no siege against Gaza. Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza.”
He argued that Mr Erdogan would have reacted in the same way if rockets had hit Istanbul.
More than 1,300 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed during the three-week conflict which began on 27 December.
Mr Erdogan later complained that he had been allowed to speak for just 12 minutes compared with 25 for Mr Peres.
“I did not target at all in any way the Israeli people, President Peres or the Jewish people,” he said.
“I am a prime minister, a leader who has expressly stated that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity.”