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WASHINGTON – The Senate confirmed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state Wednesday as President Barack Obama moved to make his imprint on U.S. foreign policy, mobilizing a fresh team of veteran advisers and reaching out to world leaders. The Senate voted 94-2, with Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Jim DeMint of South Carolina opposing.

Republicans and Democrats alike said her swift confirmation was necessary so that Obama could begin tackling the major foreign policy issues at hand, including two wars, increased violence in the Middle East and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

"It is essential that we provide the president with the tools and resources he needs to effect change, and that starts with putting a national security team in place as soon as possible," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Obama's presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, was among those who spoke in Clinton's favor.

"This nation has come together in a way that it has not for some time," said the Arizona Republican, on the Senate floor for the first time since the inauguration.

Voters "want us to work together and get to work," McCain said.

As the Senate debated Clinton's appointment, Obama wasted no time in his first day at the White House. According to a White House spokesman, Obama placed telephone calls to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Jordan's King Abdullah II and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The administration also planned to name former Senate Democratic leader George J. Mitchell as Clinton's special envoy for the Middle East. Dennis Ross, a longtime U.S. negotiator, was also expected to advise Clinton on Mideast policy, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the move.

She was sworn in as the nation's 67th secretary of state in her office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Attending the private ceremony was her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and her Senate staff. According to her office, she used the Bible that belonged to her late father. To assume the position, she submitted her resignation as senator in twin letters to Vice President Joe Biden, as president of the Senate, and New York Gov. David Paterson.

The former first lady planned to report to the State Department on Thursday, where she was expected to address employees in the main lobby that morning — a tradition of sorts for secretaries of state on their first day on the job.

Clinton received overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress despite lingering concerns by some Republicans that her husband's charitable fundraising overseas could pose conflicts of interest.

Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, proposed that former President Bill Clinton's foundation reject foreign contributions. But Hillary Clinton rejected Lugar's proposal, contending that the foundation's plan to disclose annually its list of donors and a range of its contributions already exceeds legal requirements.

Lugar said he hoped Clinton would re-examine her position but supported her appointment, citing her "remarkable qualifications" and "pressing global issues."

Vitter and DeMint, both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said they were unsatisfied. Last week, Vitter cast the sole opposing vote in the committee's 16-1 endorsement of Clinton. DeMint voted in favor of Clinton on the committee because he said he didn't want to obstruct a full Senate vote on her appointment, but ultimately did not support her nomination.

In addition to concerns surrounding the foundation, DeMint said he opposes Clinton's positions on such matters as providing aid to foreign groups that offer abortions.

"I do not plan to slow up this nomination, but I do find it difficult to support a nominee who I know will pursue policies so contrary to American sovereignty and the dignity of the human person," he said.

Following the vote, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee endorsed Susan Rice to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a post Obama has elevated to the Cabinet level.

Meanwhile, the Senate considered other appointments by Obama.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner apologized to the Senate Finance Committee and said he was careless for failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade. The committee planned to vote on his appointment on Thursday.

Eric Holder's bid to become the first African-American attorney general was delayed for at least a week when Republicans demanded more time to question him about harsh interrogations, Guantanamo trials and other topics.

GAZA CITY, Gaza – France and Egypt announced an initiative to stop the fighting in Gaza late Tuesday, hours after Israeli mortar shells exploded near a U.N. school sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. At least 30 Palestinians died, staining streets with blood.

AP – Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a street near a U.N. school, after an Israeli

The Egyptian and French presidents didn't release details of their proposal, saying only that it involved an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza and talks to settle the differences between Israel and the Islamic militants of Hamas who rule the small coastal territory.

They said they were awaiting a response from Israel. Israeli officials in Jerusalem declined immediate comment on the announcement, which came amid diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and other nations to resolve a conflict that has seen 600 people killed in 11 days.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weclomed the initiative, but cautioned that no agreement would succeed unless it halted Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and arms smuggling into Gaza.

Earlier in the day, President-elect Barack Obama broke his silence on the crisis, saying that "the loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern for me." He declined to go further, reiterating his stance that the U.S. has only one president at a time.

Israel's military said its shelling at the school — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday after a week of air bombardment — was a response to mortar fire from within the school and said Hamas militants were using civilians as cover.

Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school, where 350 people had gathered to get away from the shelling. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Majed Hamdan, an AP photographer, rushed to the scene shortly after the attacks. At the hospital, he said, many children were among the dead.

"I saw women and men — parents — slapping their faces in grief, screaming, some of them collapsed to the floor. They knew their children were dead," he said. "In the morgue, most of the killed appeared to be children. In the hospital, there wasn't enough space for the wounded."

He said there appeared to be marks on the pavement of five separate explosions in area of the school.

An Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said it appeared the military used 120-mm shells, among the largest mortar rounds.

U.N. officials demanded an investigation of the shelling. The carnage, which included 55 wounded, added to a surging civilian toll and drew mounting international pressure for Israel to end the offensive against Hamas.

At a news conference in Sharm-el-Sheik, Egypt, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the truce proposal offered by him and French President Sarkozy envisioned an immediate end to combat, so humanitarian supplies can safely enter Gaza.

Mubarak said the plan also calls for an urgent meeting between Israel and the Palestinians to discuss ways to resolve the conflict and provide necessary guarantees to ensure fighting doesn't erupt again.

There was no indication of the plan's chances. Sarkozy said at the news conference that he saw it as a "small hope" for ending the Gaza violence.

Sarkozy said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to inform him of the initiaitve and was awaiting a response.

He said Mubarak invited Israel "to come discuss the question of border security ... (and) that could be in the hours ahead."

In Jerusalem, Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, told AP: "We are holding off comments on that for the time being."

At U.N. headquarters, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the proposal. "I express my support for the plan set in motion today by President Mubarak and President Sarkozy," said Abbas, who was in New York for a Security Council meeting on the Gaza crisis.

Israeli officials have said any cease-fire agreement must prevent further rocket attacks by Gaza militants and put in place measures to prevent the smuggling of missile and other weapons into the small Palestinian territory.

Rice told the Security Council meeting that the U.S. understood the growing desire for a cease-fire. "In this regard, we are pleased by, and wish to commend, the statement of the president of Egypt and to follow up on that initiative," she said.

But Rice added that any solution must address Israel's security.

"There must be a solution this time that does not allow Hamas to use Gaza as a launching pad against Israeli cities. It has to be a solution that does not allow the rearmament of Hamas, and it must be a solution that finds a way to open (border) crossings so that Palestinians in Gaza can have a normal life," she said.

In the wake of the criticism over civilian casualties, Israel agreed to set up a "humanitarian corridor" to ship vital supplies into the Gaza Strip. Under the plan, put forward by the Israeli Defense Ministry, Israel would suspend attacks in certain areas to allow people to get supplies.

At U.N. headquarters, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the Israeli bombardment of U.N. facilities in Gaza "totally unacceptable." Israel's shells have fallen around three schools, including the girls school hit Tuesday, and a health center for Palestinian refugees.

Ban added that it was "equally unacceptable" for militants to take actions that endanger Palestinian civilians, referring to the practice of militants making attacks from residential areas.

Some 15,000 Palestinians have packed the U.N.'s 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed or to flee the violence. The U.N. provided the Israeli military with GPS coordinates for all of them.

The three mortar shells that crashed down on the perimeter of the U.N. school struck at midafternoon, when many people in the densely populated camp were outside getting some fresh air, thinking an area around a school was safe.

Images recorded by a cameraman from AP Television News showed crowds fleeing the scene, pavements smeared with blood and battered bodies being carried off by medics and bystanders. A youth who limped away was helped along by several others. Sandals lay scattered on the pavement by a pock-marked wall.

"There's nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized," said John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

An Israeli military statement said it received intelligence that the dead at the girls school included Hamas operatives, among them members of a rocket-launching squad. It identified two of them as Imad Abu Askar and Hassan Abu Askar.

Two residents who spoke to an AP reporter by phone said the two brothers were known to be low-level Hamas militants. They said a group of militants — one of them said four — were firing mortar shells from near the school.

An Israeli shell targeted the men, but missed and they fled, the witnesses said. Then another three shells landed nearby, exploding among civilians, they said, refusing to allow their names to be published because they feared for their safety.

A total of 71 Palestinians were killed Tuesday — with just two confirmed as militants, Gaza health officials said.

An Israeli infant was wounded by one of about two dozen rockets fired into southern Israel by Gaza militants.

Eleven Israelis have been killed since the offensive began: three civilians and a soldier by rocket fire and seven soldiers in the ground offensive, according to Isaeli officials.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel, under international pressure, is considering a 48-hour halt to its punishing four-day air campaign on Hamas targets in Gaza to see if Palestinian militants will stop their rocket attacks on southern Israel, Israeli officials said Tuesday. Any offer would be coupled with a threat to send in ground troops if the rocket fire continues.

AP – A Palestinian woman checks the damage to her house following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, Tuesday,

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed the proposal — floated by France's foreign minister — and other possible next steps with his foreign and defense ministers, Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to make the information public.

President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called leaders in the Middle East to press for a durable solution beyond any immediate truce.

Play Video Reuters – Calls for truce as Gaza deaths rise

And members of the Quartet of world powers trying to promote Mideast peace concluded a conference call with an appeal for an immediate cease-fire. The Quartet powers are the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia.

The European Union itself late Tuesday also urged an immediate truce and for Israel to reopen borders to allow vital supplies to reach Gazans. The Paris statement by the 27-member bloc avoided blaming either side for the current fighting.

In its Tuesday night meeting, Israel's leadership trio stepped up preparations for a ground offensive, conducting a telephone survey among Cabinet ministers on a plan to call up an additional 2,500 reserve soldiers, if required. Earlier this week, the Cabinet authorized a callup of 6,700 soldiers.

After the four-hour meeting, Olmert's office issued a statement early Wednesday saying no details of the discussion would be made public because of the sensitivity of the subject matter.

But Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release information on the meeting, said the leaders wanted Hamas to agree to stop the rocket fire before Israel considers a truce.

And even amid talk of a truce, Israeli warplanes continued to unload bombs on targets in Gaza. Powerful airstrikes caused Gaza City's high-rise apartment buildings to sway and showered streets with broken glass and pulverized concrete. Israel's ground forces on Gaza's border also used artillery for the first time.

Hamas kept up its rocket barrages, which have killed four Israelis since the weekend, and sent many more in running for bomb shelters — some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time, as the range of the rockets grows.

A medium-range rocket hit the city of Beersheba for the first time ever, zooming 28 miles deep into Israel and slamming into an empty kindergarten. A second rocket landed in an open area near the desert city, Israel's fifth-largest. The military said later it successfully struck the group that launched those rockets.

A pattern of daytime lulls and nighttime spikes in rocket fire appeared to be emerging as militants found safer launch cover in darkness.

Four days into a campaign that has killed 374 Palestinians and prompted Arab and international condemnation, a diplomatic push to end the fighting gathered pace.

In two phone calls to Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday and Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner appealed to him to consider a truce to allow time for humanitarian relief supplies to enter the beleaguered Gaza Strip, two senior officials in Barak's office said.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was expected to travel Thursday to Paris for talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has put his growing international stature to use in other conflict zones, most recently to help halt fighting between Russia and Georgia in August.

Israeli media reported that Sarkozy would also travel to Jerusalem Monday for talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

A Hamas spokesman said any halt to militant rocket and mortar fire would require an end to Israel's crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip. "If they halt the aggression and the blockade, then Hamas will study these suggestions," said Mushir Masri.

Any cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would face questions about its long-term viability. In the past, Hamas has been unable or unwilling to rein in all the militants, some of which belong to different factions. Israel has angered the Palestinians by continuing to target its leaders and by maintaining a blockade of the Gaza Strip.

"It's certainly difficult for Hamas because, having witnessed the losses that they have just suffered on large scale, their credibility is on the line and they're not going to easily agree to a cease-fire that goes back to the conditions that prevailed before, after all these losses," said Shibley Telhami, professor of political science at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. "So, we're likely to see more bloodshed, and I think that is where we are in a way, events on the ground are going to dictate."

Israel's military, meanwhile, pressed on, sending warplanes to strike a Gaza government complex that includes the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and justice. Bombs ripped the tops and sides from buildings that had already been evacuated and left fires blazing in upper floors.

It was the largest government target hit so far and involved the largest number of bombs dropped in a single strike — at least 16 in all.

The airstrikes have sent the people of densely populated Gaza on a zigzagging desperate search for safer ground — hard to find with no way out of the blockaded territory.

"I don't know what's safe anymore," said university student Rasha Khaldeh of Gaza City. She fled her home, fearing Israel would target her Hamas neighbors, then had to leave her uncle's house because of nearby shelling. She listens intently for the approach of pilotless Israeli drones.

After nightfall, Israel destroyed 40 tunnels under the sealed Gaza-Egypt border in another attempt to cut the vital lifeline that supplies Gaza with both commercial goods and weapons for Hamas and other militant groups.

Israel kept up the attack on the tunnels early Wednesday, as other aircraft hit Hamas positions in Gaza City.

Israel's military said it hit 31 targets on Tuesday, including a Cabinet building, rocket-launching sites, and places were missiles were being built. Some of the hits on sites with weapons stockpiles triggered secondary explosions.

The question still hanging over the Israeli operation is how it can halt rocket fire. Israel has never found a military solution to the barrage of missiles. The "Iron Dome," a system to guard against short-range missiles, will take years to build.

Beyond delivering Hamas a deep blow and protecting border communities, the assault's broader objectives remained cloudy. Israeli President Shimon Peres acknowledged the challenge, saying the operation was unavoidable but more difficult than many people anticipated.

"War against terrorists is harder in some aspects than fighting armies," Peres said.

Hamas also said it would take more to cripple it.

A spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Abu Obeida, said the group remained strong, and he vowed to fight on as long as Israel continues its airstrikes. He noted that even while under heavy airstrikes, militants had fired rockets that reached Israeli towns farther from Gaza than ever. "Rockets will be on your daily agenda," he said in a message to Israelis.

And if there's a ground invasion, he promised worse: "If you enter Gaza, the children will collect your flesh and the remains of your tanks which will be spread out through the streets."

The offensive came shortly after a rocky, six-month truce expired.

Emad Falluji, a former Hamas leader working at a Gaza-based think tank, said he believes Hamas had wanted to renew the truce but felt humiliated by Israel's decision to maintain a tight blockade on Gaza.

"Israel didn't want to give Hamas anything in return for the cease-fire, which was effectively free," he said.

Egypt, which has been blockading Gaza from its southern end, has come under pressure from the rest of the Arab world to reopen its border with the territory because of the Israeli campaign. Egypt has pried open the border to let in some of Gaza's wounded and to allow some humanitarian supplies into the territory. But it quickly sealed the border when Gazans tried to push through forcefully.

In a televised speech Tuesday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak responded to critics, including the leader of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, who have accused him of collaborating with Israel.

"We tell anybody who seeks political profits on the account of the Palestinian people: The Palestinian blood is not cheap," he said, describing such comments as "exploiting the blood of the Palestinians."

Mubarak said his country would not throw open the border crossing unless Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — a Hamas rival — regains control of the border post. Mubarak has been rattled by the presence of a neighboring Islamic ministate in Gaza, fearing it would fuel more Islamic dissidence in Egypt.

Most of the Palestinians killed since Saturday were members of Hamas security forces but the number included at least 64 civilians, according to U.N. figures. Among those killed were two sisters, Haya and Lama Hamdan, ages 4 and 12, who died in an airstrike on a rocket squad in northern Gaza on Tuesday.

Throughout the offensive, Israel's military has released video taken by hovering drone aircraft showing its missiles and bombs hurtling into Gaza targets, including one on Tuesday that sent about a half-dozen bombs simultaneously into a smuggling tunnel under the Gaza-Egypt border.

During brief lulls between airstrikes, Gazans tentatively ventured into the streets to buy goods and collect belongings from homes they had abandoned after Israel's aerial onslaught began Saturday.

The campaign has brought a new reality to southern Israel, too, where one-tenth of the country's population of 7 million has suddenly found itself within rocket range.

"It's very scary," said Yaacov Pardida, a 55-year-old resident of Ashdod, southern Israel's largest city, which was hit Monday. "I never imagined that this could happen, that they could reach us here."