President-elect Barack Obama was briefed at the weekend by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, about the Israeli bombardment of Gaza but afterwards gave no hint of how he would go about resolving the conflict.
Obama, who is on holiday on Hawaii, spoke to Rice for about eight minutes on Saturday. His national security spokeswoman, Brooke Anderson, said: "The president-elect appreciated the call and the information from Secretary Rice. He will continue to closely monitor these and other global events."
She added that he would not comment, as he was sticking to the formula that there should be "one president at a time".
