KIEV (Reuters) - The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday that more Russian soldiers had crossed the border into eastern Ukraine, entering the small town of Amvrosiyivka in five armored infantry carriers and a truck.

The report of a further cross-border incursion by Russian troops followed the capture by Ukrainian government forces of a group of Russian paratroopers in roughly the same area.

Moscow said the captured troops had strayed into Ukraine by mistake but Kiev said they had been on a "special mission" linked to the pro-Russian separatist rebellions in the east.

"Five armored infantry carriers and one Kamaz truck entered Amvrosiyivka with men in them," military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told journalists in Kiev.

"If this tactical group got lost and accidentally came into Ukraine like the paratroops of the 98th paratroop division then it remains for us to remind them that they can return to Russia, taking an easterly direction," Lysenko remarked.

Fighting was meanwhile continuing in key settlements near the rebel-held city of Donetsk despite peace talks on Tuesday in Minsk between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin at which the Ukrainian leader pledged to work on a road map that would lead to a ceasefire.

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A group of Russian servicemen, who are detained by Ukrainian authorities, attend a news conference i …

Over the past 24 hours, Lysenko said, there had been intense fighting further north near the town of Horlivka and Ilovaysk, about 50 km (30 miles) away in which 200 separatists had been killed and their tanks and missile systems destroyed.

Thirteen Ukrainian service personnel had been killed in the past 24 hours in 34 clashes at points across eastern and south-eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian military officials say the separatists, backed by Russian soldiers and armed with armor and military equipment coming from across the border, have switched the focus in the war towards the south-east of Ukraine down to the Azov Sea.

Military successes there for the separatists could put in danger the key port city of Mariupol, held at the moment by government forces. If separatists got a grip on the south-east they could reinforce their positions in Donetsk from the south.

Lysenko said that rebels "together with the Russian occupiers" had taken the settlement of Starobesheve, south-east from Donetsk, destroying a hospital in the process. Wounded, he said, were being evacuated south.

The video footage of the captured Russian paratroopers is the strongest evidence yet to support Kiev's claims of Russian involvement in the five-month conflict in which the United Nations says more than 2,000 people - troops, civilians and rebels - have been killed.

The crisis, which followed the ousting of a Moscow-backed president in Ukraine by street protests and a take-over by a pro-Western leadership has sparked the worst confrontation between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

Separately, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk on Tuesday said Ukraine needed "practical help" from the U.S.-led NATO alliance, with which it has the status of a special partner, and expected it to take "momentous" decisions in this regard at its summit in Wales in early September.

"We need help," Yatseniuk told a government meeting.

Though Ukraine is not a NATO member and does not qualify for direct military support from the alliance, NATO has taken Kiev's side in the conflict, blaming Russia for creating the crisis by annexing Crimea in March and fuelling the rebellions in the east and arming the separatists.

(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets and Alessandra Prentice; Writing by Richard Balmforth; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Palestinians leave a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinians, as they make their way home after a ceasefire was declared, in the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip August 27, 2014. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Jeffrey Heller

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An open-ended ceasefire in the Gaza war held on Wednesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced strong criticism in Israel over a costly conflict with Palestinian militants in which no clear victor emerged.

On the streets of the battered, Hamas-run Palestinian enclave, people headed to shops and banks, trying to resume the normal pace of life after seven weeks of fighting. Thousands of others, who had fled the battles and sheltered with relatives or in schools, returned home, where some found only rubble.

In Israel, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip fell silent. But media commentators, echoing attacks by members of Netanyahu's governing coalition, voiced deep disappointment over his leadership during the most prolonged bout of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a decade.

"After 50 days of warfare in which a terror organization killed dozens of soldiers and civilians, destroyed the daily routine (and) placed the country in a state of economic distress ... we could have expected much more than an announcement of a ceasefire," analyst Shimon Shiffer wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest-selling newspaper.

"We could have expected the prime minister to go to the president’s residence and inform him of his decision to resign his post."

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Hamas militants display weapons as they celebrate what they say was a victory over Israel, in front …

Netanyahu, who has faced constant sniping in his cabinet from right-wing ministers demanding military action to topple Hamas, scheduled a news conference for Wednesday evening, expected to be his first public remarks since the Egyptian-mediated truce deal took effect on Tuesday evening.

Palestinian health officials say 2,139 people, most of them civilians, including more than 490 children, have been killed in the enclave since July 8, when Israel launched an offensive with the declared aim of ending rocket salvoes.

Israel's death toll stood at 64 soldiers and six civilians.

The ceasefire agreement called for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza's blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt, and a widening of the territory's fishing zone in the Mediterranean.

A senior Hamas official voiced willingness for the security forces of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the unity government he formed in June to control the passage points.

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A Hamas militant displays a mortar shell as he celebrates what the militants say was a victory over …

Both Israel and Egypt view Hamas as a security threat and are seeking guarantees that weapons will not enter Gaza, a narrow, densely populated territory of 1.8 million people.

Under a second stage of the truce that would begin a month later, Israel and the Palestinians would discuss the construction of a Gaza sea port and Israel's release of Hamas prisoners in the occupied West Bank, possibly in a trade for the remains of two Israeli soldiers believed held by Hamas, the officials said.

Israel has in recent weeks said it wants the full demilitarization of Gaza. The United States and European Union have supported the goal, but it remains unclear what it would mean in practice and Hamas has rejected it as unfeasible.

COMPETING VICTORY CLAIMS

"On the land of proud Gaza, the united people achieved absolute victory against the Zionist enemy," a Hamas statement said.

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Palestinian fishermen pull their net at the beach of Gaza City August 27, 2014. An open-ended ceasef …

Israel said it dealt a strong blow to Hamas, killing several of its military leaders and destroying the Islamist group's cross-border infiltration tunnels.

"Hamas's military wing was badly hit, we know this clearly through unequivocal intelligence," Yossi Cohen, Netanyahu's national security adviser, said on Army Radio.

But Israel also faced persistent rocket fire for nearly two months that caused an exodus from a number of border communities and disrupted daily life in its commercial heartland.

"They are celebrating in Gaza," cabinet minister Uzi Landau, of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party in Netanyahu's coalition, told Israel Radio. He said that for Israel, the outcome of the war was "very gloomy" because it had not created sufficient deterrence to dissuade Hamas from attacking in the future.

Nahum Barnea, one of Israel's most popular columnists, expressed concern "that instead of paving the way to removing the threat from Gaza, we are paving the road to the next round, in Lebanon or in Gaza".

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A Palestinian family leaves a United Nations-run school sheltering displaced Palestinians, as they m …

"The Israelis expected a leader, a statesman who knows what he wants to achieve, someone who makes decisions and engages in a sincere and real dialogue with his public," he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth. "They received a seasoned spokesperson, and very little beyond that."

Ben Caspit, writing in the Maariv daily, said there was no victory for Israel in a conflict that resulted in "a collapsed tourism industry (and) an economy approaching recession".

Israel's central bank has estimated the conflict will knock half a point off economic growth this year.

But with future diplomatic moves on Gaza's future still pending, there was no immediate talk publicly among Netanyahu's coalition partners of any steps to break up the alliance.

In a further sign of the truce's impact, Egypt eased restrictions at the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, allowing World Food Program supplies containing a shipment of 25,000 food parcels into the coastal territory for the first time since 2007, a statement by the humanitarian group said.

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Palestinians sit on a couch as they return to the remains of their house, which witnesses said was d …

Israel has regularly permitted food and other humanitarian goods to be shipped into Gaza across its border, during the latest fighting as well. A government website says 5,359 truckloads of goods have transited the Kerem Shalom crossing with Gaza since July 8, the day the seven-week conflict erupted.

Israel has said it would facilitate the flow of more civilian goods and humanitarian and reconstruction aid into the impoverished territory if the truce was honored.

But, Cohen said: "(Hamas) will...not get a port unless it declares it will disarm. It will not get even one screw unless we can be sure it is not being used to strengthen Gaza's military might."

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said 540,000 people had been displaced in the Gaza Strip. Israel has said Hamas bears responsibility for civilian casualties because it operates among non-combatants and uses schools and mosques to store weapons and as launch sites for rockets.

(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraq was massing forces Wednesday for an operation to break the two-month jihadist siege of the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli, amid growing fears for residents short of food and water.

The planned counter-offensive comes amid reports that US President Barack Obama is weighing a decision to authorise air strikes and aid drops in the area to help around 12,000 people trapped in the northern town.

According to a civilian volunteer commander, thousands of Shiite militiamen from groups including Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Badr Organisation are gathering in the Tuz Khurmatu area of Salaheddin province, north of Amerli, in preparation for a battle to break the siege.

And an army lieutenant general said that security forces were mobilising in the Jabal Hamreen area, south of Amerli, to launch an attack.

Iraqi aircraft have begun targeting positions of Islamic State (IS) jihadists around Amerli, carrying out nine strikes on Tuesday, an officer said.

Time is running out for the mainly Shiite Turkmen residents of Amerli, who face danger both because of their Shiite faith, which jihadists consider heresy, and their resistance against the militants, which has drawn deadly retribution elsewhere.

There is "no possibility of evacuating them so far", and only limited humanitarian assistance is reaching the town, said Eliana Nabaa, the spokeswoman for the UN mission in Iraq.

Iraq village now military outpost for Kurdish figh …Play Video

UN Iraq envoy Nickolay Mladenov has called for an urgent effort to help Amerli, saying residents who have been under siege for more than two months face a "possible massacre" if it is overrun.

- Obama 'planning coalition' -

People trapped in the city are suffering from a major shortage of food and water and there is no electricity.

The New York Times reported that Obama is "nearing a decision" on authorising strikes and aid drops in the Amerli area.

The paper added that Obama is also seeking to piece together an international coalition for potential military action in Syria, where the US has begun reconnaissance flights to track IS militants.

The US focus on Syria comes after President Bashar al-Assad's regime said on Monday it was willing to work with the international community, including Washington, to tackle extremist fighters.

White House Weighs Options for ISIS AirstrikesPlay Video

But American officials said they did not plan to coordinate with Damascus on targeting IS militants in Syria, despite Syrian insistence that any military action on its soil must be discussed in advance.

International concern about IS has been rising after a lightning offensive by the group through parts of Iraq and a string of brutal abuses, including the murder of US journalist James Foley.

The mother of Steven Sotloff, another American journalist whom the jihadist group has threatened to kill if air strikes against it are not halted, on Wednesday appealed for IS to "not punish my son for matters he has no control over."

A UN-mandated probe charged Wednesday that public executions, amputations, lashings and mock crucifixions have become a regular fixture in jihadist-controlled areas of Syria.

- Public executions -

"In areas of Syria under (IS) control, particularly in the north and northeast of the country, Fridays are regularly marked by executions, amputations and lashings in public squares," the independent Commission of Inquiry on the human rights situation in Syria said.

Jihadists are also pushing residents, including children, to attend public executions by beheading or a shot to the head, it said.

"Executions in public spaces have become a common spectacle on Fridays," said the report, which also accused Damascus of repeatedly using chemical weapons against civilians.

The US began air raids against IS in Iraq on August 8. At least nine countries have now committed to providing arms to Iraq's Kurdish peshmerga troops, who are fighting IS militants in north and east Iraq.

Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel put the number of countries on board at eight, while Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani said that Iran has provided arms and equipment as well, bringing the total to at least nine.

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has acknowledged that the IS group cannot be defeated "without addressing that part of the organisation that resides in Syria".

Syria's forces on Wednesday lost further ground to other rebels, who seized control of the Syrian crossing with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a monitoring group said.

The takeover of the Quneitra crossing was led by Al-Qaeda's affiliate Al-Nusra Front joined by a number of rebel groups, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Heavy fighting with the Syrian army is continuing in the surrounding area," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

TouchVision
REBELS ATTACK UKRAINIAN TOWN

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The battle for Ukraine's strategic coastline heated up Wednesday as a local mayor reported that pro-Russian rebel forces entered a key town in southeast Ukraine after three days of heavy shelling.

Novoazovsk, a resort town of 40,000 on the Sea of Azov, lies in a strategically significant location — on the road linking Russia to the Ukrainian port of Mariupol and onto Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed. Wednesday's incursion, reported by the town's mayor, was the first time in the four-month-long conflict between the government in Kiev and separatists in the east that fighting has reached as far south as the seacoast. It suggests that the rebels — who Ukraine, NATO and Western nations all say are being supported by Russia — have been both emboldened and reinforced.

The new southeastern front also raised fears the separatists are seeking to create a land link between Russia and Crimea. If successful, it could give them or Russia control over the entire Sea of Azov and the gas and mineral riches that energy experts believe it contains. Ukraine already lost roughly half its coastline, several major ports and significant Black Sea mineral rights in March when Russia annexed Crimea.

Oleg Sidorkin, the mayor of Novoazovsk, told The Associated Press by telephone that the rebels had entered the town and he had seen dozens of tanks and armored vehicles roll in.

AP reporters earlier in the day saw more than 20 shells fall around the town in a one-hour span. But access from the west was blocked by Ukrainian soldiers later and the presence of rebels in Novoazovsk could not be independently confirmed.

Sidorkin said the rebels had been positioned near Ukraine's southernmost border with Russia. It was not immediately clear how the rebels could have traveled to the southeast area, which is far from the main front line further north and in an area controlled by the government. Fighters could have easily come over the Russian border, however.

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A group of Russian servicemen, who are detained by Ukrainian authorities, attend a news conference i …

The assault on the town has forced government troops to spread their ranks thinner along the Russian border.

A spokesman for Ukraine's security council, Col. Andriy Lysenko, said "we do not have information that it (Nozoazovsk) is occupied."

Earlier, he said the shelling around the town was coming from both Ukrainian and Russian territory. Ukrainian security officials said nearby villages had also come under shelling.

In Mariupol, a city of 450,000 about 30 kilometers (20 miles) to the west, the defenses built up. A brigade of Ukrainian forces arrived at the airport on Wednesday afternoon, while deep trenches were dug a day earlier on the city's edge. Other troops were blocking traffic from entering or leaving the port's eastern edge.

Artillery shells in Novoazovsk appeared to be flying between rebel and government positions.

Putin says troops may have crossed into Ukraine du …Play Video

"It hit a tree, there was a blast and the shrapnel came down here," said Alexei Podlepentsov, an electrician at the Novoazovsk hospital, which was struck by shelling Tuesday.

In Donetsk, the largest rebel-held city further north, at least three people were killed on a main road when their cars were hit by shrapnel from falling artillery shells.

Fighting persisted elsewhere, and Lysenko said 13 Ukrainian troops had been killed over the past day.

Ukraine and Western governments have repeatedly accused Russia of playing a direct role in the conflict, supplying troops and weaponry to the rebels. Russia denies the claims, but their stance is increasingly dismissed abroad.

"Information, which in recent hours has gained another hard-facts confirmation, is that regular Russian units are operating in eastern Ukraine," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday. "This information, coming from NATO and confirmed by our intelligence, is in fact unequivocal."

Fighting Continues After Putin, Poroshenko TalksPlay Video

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Petro Poroshenko, met in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on Tuesday for their first ever one-on-one meeting, which lasted over two hours. But there was no indication of a swift resolution to the fighting that has dragged on since April and claimed at least 2,000 civilian lives.

Poroshenko called the talks "overall positive" and said Putin had accepted the principles of his peace plan, which includes an amnesty for those in the east not accused of serious crimes and calls for some decentralization of power.

Putin, however, insisted that only Kiev could secure a cease-fire deal with the pro-Moscow separatists, saying the conflict was "Ukraine's business" because Russia was not in the fight.

Russia "can only help to create an atmosphere of trust for this important and necessary process," Putin said. "We in Russia cannot talk about any conditions for the cease-fire."

But Associated Press journalists on the border have seen the rebels with a wide range of unmarked military equipment — including tanks, Buk missile launchers and armored personnel carriers — and have run into many Russians among the rebel fighters. Ukraine also captured 10 soldiers from a Russian paratrooper division Monday around Amvrosiivka, a town near the Russian border. In videos posted on Facebook by Ukraine, one captive soldier said he did not know they were heading on a mission into Ukraine, while another said he did.

Those 10 have been taken to Kiev for questioning — but Ukrainian officials say Russia has not contacted them about the soldiers.

Ukraine wants the rebels to hand back the territory they have captured in eastern Ukraine, while Putin wants to retain some sort of leverage over the mostly Russian-speaking region so Ukraine does not join NATO or the European Union. Putin has so far ignored requests from the rebels to be annexed by Russia.

In Moscow, Denis Pushilin, one of the leaders of the pro-Russia insurgency, told reporters he had no information about whether Russian soldiers had entered Ukraine near Novoazovsk. But he said the Ukrainian separatists have been joined by many volunteers, including ones from Russia and Serbia.

AP reporters in eastern Ukraine have heard a variety of Russian accents from all over the country among the rebel fighters.

___

Jim Heintz in Kiev, Ukraine, Nicolae Dumitrache in Donetsk, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.