Cease-Fire Between Israel and Hamas Takes Effect

CAIRO — Under intense Egyptian and American pressure, Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas halted eight days of bloody conflict on Wednesday, averting a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip without resolving the underlying disputes.

With Israeli forces still massed on the Gaza border, a tentative calm descended after the announcement of the agreement. The success of the truce will be an early test of how Egypt’s new Islamist government might influence the most intractable conflict in the Middle East.

The United States, Israel and Hamas all praised Egypt’s role in brokering the cease-fire as the antagonists pulled back from violence that had killed more than 150 Palestinians and 5 Israelis over the past week. The deal called for a 24-hour cooling-off period to be followed by talks aimed at resolving at least some of the longstanding grievances between the two sides.

Gazans poured into the streets declaring victory against the far more powerful Israeli military. In Israel, the public reaction was far more subdued. Many residents in the south expressed doubt that the agreement would hold, partly because at least five Palestinian rockets thudded into southern Israel after the cease-fire began.

The one-page memorandum of understanding left the issues that have most inflamed the tensions between the Israelis and the Gazans up for further negotiation. Israel demands long-term border security, including an end to Palestinian missile launching over the border. Hamas want an end to the Israeli embargo.

The deal demonstrated the pragmatism of Egypt’s new Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, who balanced public support for Hamas with a determinations to preserve the peace with Israel. But it was unclear whether the agreement would be a turning point or merely a lull in the conflict.

The cease-fire deal was reached only through a final American diplomatic push: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred for hours with Mr. Morsi and the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, at the presidential palace here. Hanging over the talks was the Israeli shock at a Tel Aviv bus bombing — praised by Hamas — that recalled past Palestinian uprisings and raised fears of heavy Israeli retaliation. After false hopes the day before, Western and Egyptian diplomats said they had all but given up hope for a quick end to the violence.

Tellingly, neither Israel nor Hamas was represented in the final talks or the announcement, leaving it in the hands of a singular partnership between their proxies, the United States and Egypt.

There were immediate questions about the durability of the deal. Hamas, which controls Gaza, has in the past not fulfilled less formal cease-fires by failing to halt all missile fire into Israel by breakaway Palestinian militants.

Neither side retreated from threats to resume the conflict if the deal fell through, and both said they had only reluctantly agreed under international pressure. In a televised news conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared that some Israelis still expected “a much harsher military operation, and it is very possible we will be compelled to embark on one.”

But he said that in a telephone conversation with Mr. Obama earlier in the evening, “I agreed with him that it is worth giving the cease-fire a chance.” He added that he had reached an undisclosed agreement with Mr. Obama to “work together against the smuggling of weapons” to Palestinian militants, for which Mr. Netanyahu blamed Iran.

Khaled Meshal, Hamas’s top leader, thanked Iran for its military support in a triumphal news conference in Cairo. “This is a point on the way to a great defeat for Israel,” he said. “Israel failed in all its objectives.”

He suggested that the West had come to Hamas and its Islamist allies in Egypt pleading for peace. “The Americans and the Europeans asked the Egyptians, ‘You have the ear of the resistance,’ ” he said, using the term Hamas prefers to describe itself and other Palestinian militants fighting the Israeli occupation. “Egypt did not sell out the resistance as some people have claimed. Egypt understood the demands of the resistance and the Palestinian people.”

David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and Jodi Rudoren from Gaza. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Isabel Kershner and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem, Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Tool Kit: Online Shopping Tips for the Holidays

Some people may be looking forward to leaving Thanksgiving dinner before the pie is served to join the Black Friday rush, which will begin during dinnertime Thursday, earlier than ever, at stores like Sears, Walmart and Lord & Taylor.

But for those who prefer to stay for the pie course, avoid the lines and freezing temperatures and shop from the comfort of their homes, there are just as many deals to be found online this year, especially for smart shoppers.

Last year, online shoppers spent $816 million on Black Friday, an increase of 26 percent from the year before, and an additional $2.3 billion over Thanksgiving weekend and Cyber Monday, according to comScore. It expects online spending to rise this year.

Online, there is no commute, no parking and no crowds — and shopping can be done in bed or at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Still, you cannot try clothes on, you have to wait for your purchase to arrive and there is always the nagging feeling that a better price is just one more click away.

To find your way around those problems, here are some tips from online shopping pros, retailers and shopping bloggers.

BARGAINS START EARLY “Cyber Monday is passé,” said Fiona Dias, chief strategy officer for ShopRunner.com, a network of e-commerce sites. “With online sales beginning as early as the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, consumers who hold out for the best deal may find that what they are looking for has already sold out.”

Amazon.com, for example, started its Black Friday deals on Monday, but they end Saturday. SHOP ON TUESDAYS One of the secrets of online shopping is that prices change by the second. To maximize your chances of getting the best price year-round, shop on Tuesday, a variety of e-commerce experts say. For whatever reason, Tuesday is when most e-commerce sites, including Shopbop, Etsy and RetailMeNot, post discounts and new items.

No matter the day, online retailers often start sales in the wee hours, so shop early.

As for the time of year, women’s clothes, shoes and accessories are discounted most in January, February, August and September, according to Shop It To Me, an online shopping search site. For consumer electronics like laptops, shop in midsummer and late September, before and after the back-to-school rush, according to Decide.com, a price comparison site.

NEVER PAY FULL PRICE Online holiday shoppers should use 40 percent off as a benchmark for a good deal, said Marjorie Cader, a Shop It To Me spokeswoman, based on discount data the site has collected. Expect discounts that are about 5 percent better from online-only retailers than from those that also operate brick and mortar stores, she said.

Comparison shopping sites like TheFind or ShopStyle can locate the best prices; Google or coupon sites like RetailMeNot can also help find a discount.

Google, Amazon and even flash sale sites like Gilt.com do not always have the lowest prices. You might check small shopping blogs dedicated to your favorite brands, like Grechen’s Closet for contemporary women’s clothes or J. Crew Aficionada.

“Spend 20 minutes and ensure you are getting the best deal out there,” said John Faith, senior vice president of mobile at WhaleShark Media, which operates coupon sites, including RetailMeNot.

BE A HAGGLER This is the year haggling at the cash register could become acceptable, as offline retailers try to keep shoppers offline. If you find a better price online — by using an application like RedLaser or searching Amazon — ask whether the cashier will match it. Big retailers like Target have already said they will.

WAIT TILL THE LAST MINUTE Procrastinators might benefit during the holidays. Electronics sold online are least expensive in the week before Christmas, according to Decide, especially TVs, laptops and cameras.

And while Dec. 17 is the last day that most online retailers will offer free shipping in time for Christmas, Walmart, the luxury clothing seller Net-a-Porter and others will deliver the same day. In San Francisco and New York, eBay now offers same-day delivery from hundreds of stores, including Macy’s, Target and Toys “R” Us.

NEVER PAY FOR SHIPPING... Nine of ten retailers will offer free shipping on certain purchases this holiday season, and a third will offer free shipping on all purchases, according to the National Retail Federation.

Some, though, require that you enter a promotional code, so it’s wise to take a minute to look around the Web site or search a coupon site to find it.

Stores including Walmart, Toys “R” Us and Nordstrom allow you to shop online and pick up your order locally.

...OR FOR RETURNS Sites like Zappos.com and Piperlime send prepaid shipping labels, but beware.

“When it comes to returns, read the fine print,” said Brian Hoyt, a spokesman for WhaleShark Media. Some merchants include a prepaid return label but subtract the price from your refund, and others charge a restocking fee as high as 30 percent for consumer electronics.

Many companies, including Gap and J. Crew, also let you return an online purchase to a local store. And until Dec. 31, PayPal will cover the return shipping cost if the merchant does not, as long as you pay with PayPal and make the return within 30 days.

SEARCH WISELY Try searching synonyms, like “coat” instead of “jacket.” On sites like eBay, try leaving out words — if you are looking for an Yves Saint Laurent handbag on eBay, search for “Saint Laurent” or “Laurent bag.”

“If you search for ‘Yves Saint Laurent,’ you’ll be fighting over pieces with a bigger group of people,” said Sophia Amoruso, founder and chief executive of the e-commerce retailer Nasty Gal, who suggested purposefully misspelling brand names as well. “Think of what an uninformed person might list a really great designer piece as, and you can get an amazing gem for an incredible price.”

EBay Fashion also lets shoppers search by taking a cellphone picture of a fabric to find similar designs.

GET INSPIRED Search for “black sequin dress,” and you’ll get 128 results on Zappos.com, 2,618 on Amazon.com and a truly overwhelming 18 million on Google.

One solution: Trust online curators to suggest items. Etsy creates lists of recommended items. On Pinterest, you can peruse items culled by others. Other sites to search for inspiration: Polvyore, Fancy, Svpply, Lookbook.nu and We Heart It.

TRY IT ON, VIRTUALLY You can visit sites that show real people wearing the clothes you’re interested in buying, like Go Try It On, Fashism and Rent the Runway and sites that show video, including Asos, MyHabit and Joyus. Or, as long as a site offers free shipping and returns, order two sizes and return one.

SHOP INTERNATIONALLY “Don’t let international shopping scare you off,” said Caroline Nolan, the writer of Pregnant Fashionista, a maternity shopping blog.

Many international e-commerce sites, like Asos, ship free to the United States. And because the seasons are different, winter clothes in Australia, for instance, go on sale just as Americans are starting to shop for winter, she said. FarFetch has items from small boutiques worldwide and 1stDibs is good at finding rare items like an antique from Paris. On eBay, you might have luck finding items made by a European designer by switching to eBay’s site for a particular country.

MAKE SITES WORK FOR YOU On Shop It To Me, you can enter your favorite designers and sizes and the site will send you personalized e-mails with promotions and sales. Many sites allow shoppers to place a symbol like a heart on best-liked items or save them to a wish list. On a site like Pinterest, shoppers can build a list.

“You always think you’ll remember where you saw something or what brand it was, but really you never do,” said Noria Morales, style director at SugarInc, a network of fashion and lifestyle blogs.

Even better, sites like Shopbop and Polyvore send alerts when items you have saved go on sale or are running low. EBay sends alerts when new items are listed for a search you have saved.

BE DILIGENT No one has time to read 50 e-mails a day from retailers. But for your favorite e-commerce sites, it is worth signing up for e-mails, as well as tracking them on Facebook and Twitter, where they often post exclusive deals. Many online shoppers have more luck hunting for items than trusting services to send alerts, said Grechen Reiter, owner of Grechen Media, a network of shopping blogs.

“It is the thrill of the hunt that gets us going, after all,” she said.

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Well: Officials Warn Against Baby Sleep Positioners

Health officials are warning parents not to use a special device designed to help keep babies in certain positions as they sleep. The device, called a sleep positioner, has been linked to at least 13 deaths in the last 15 years, officials with two federal agencies said on Wednesday.

“We urge parents and caregivers to take our warning seriously and stop using these sleep positioners,” Inez Tenenbaum, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement.

The sleep positioner devices come primarily in two forms. One is a flat mat with soft bolsters on each side. The other, known as a wedge-style positioner, looks very similar but has an incline, keeping a child in a very slight upright position.

Makers of the devices claim that by keeping infants in a specific position as they sleep, they can prevent several conditions, including acid reflux and flat head syndrome, a deformation caused by pressure on one part of the skull. Many are also marketed to parents as a way to help reduce a child’s risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which kills thousands of babies every year, most between the ages of 2 months and 4 months.

But the devices have never been shown in studies to prevent SIDS, and they may actually raise the likelihood of sudden infant death, officials say. One of the leading risk factors for sudden infant death is placing a baby on his or her stomach at bedtime, and health officials have routinely warned parents to lay babies on their backs. They even initiated a “Back to Sleep” campaign in the 1990s, which led to a sharp reduction in sudden infant deaths.

With the positioner devices, if an infant rolls onto the stomach, the child’s mouth and nose can press up against a bolster or some other part of the device, leading to suffocation. Even if placed on the back, a child can move up or down in the positioner, “entrapping its face against a bolster or becoming trapped between the positioner and the crib side,” Gail Gantt, a nurse consultant with the Food and Drug Administration, said in an e-mail. Or the child might scoot down the wedge in a way that causes the child’s mouth and nose to press into the device.

“The baby’s movement may also cause the positioner to flip on top of the baby, trapping the baby underneath the positioner or between the positioner and the side of the crib,” she said.

Of the 13 babies known to have suffocated in a sleep positioner since 1997, most died after they rolled from their sides onto their stomachs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also received dozens of reports of babies who were placed on their sides or backs, “only to be found later in hazardous positions within or next to the product,” the F.D.A. said in a statement.

Many baby books for new parents specifically urge against using sleep positioners, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not support their use for SIDS prevention. Though the F.D.A. has never approved the positioners for the prevention of SIDS, it has in the past approved a number of the devices for the prevention of gastroesophageal reflux disease and flat head syndrome. But the agency said that in light of the new safety data, it believed any benefits from using the devices were outweighed by the risk of suffocation.

As of Wednesday, the agency is explicitly advising parents to stop using sleep positioners, and it has asked manufacturers of the devices to submit clinical data showing that the benefits of their products outweigh the risk of serious harm. In addition to avoiding the devices, experts say, parents should keep things like pillows, comforters, quilts and bumpers away from their infants and their cribs. Soft bedding can increase the likelihood of a baby suffocating.

“The safest crib is a bare crib,” Dr. Susan Cummins, a pediatric expect with the F.D.A., said in a statement. “Always put your baby on his or her back to sleep. An easy way to remember this is to follow the ABC’s of safe sleep – Alone on the Back in a bare Crib.”

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Well: Officials Warn Against Baby Sleep Positioners

Health officials are warning parents not to use a special device designed to help keep babies in certain positions as they sleep. The device, called a sleep positioner, has been linked to at least 13 deaths in the last 15 years, officials with two federal agencies said on Wednesday.

“We urge parents and caregivers to take our warning seriously and stop using these sleep positioners,” Inez Tenenbaum, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a statement.

The sleep positioner devices come primarily in two forms. One is a flat mat with soft bolsters on each side. The other, known as a wedge-style positioner, looks very similar but has an incline, keeping a child in a very slight upright position.

Makers of the devices claim that by keeping infants in a specific position as they sleep, they can prevent several conditions, including acid reflux and flat head syndrome, a deformation caused by pressure on one part of the skull. Many are also marketed to parents as a way to help reduce a child’s risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, which kills thousands of babies every year, most between the ages of 2 months and 4 months.

But the devices have never been shown in studies to prevent SIDS, and they may actually raise the likelihood of sudden infant death, officials say. One of the leading risk factors for sudden infant death is placing a baby on his or her stomach at bedtime, and health officials have routinely warned parents to lay babies on their backs. They even initiated a “Back to Sleep” campaign in the 1990s, which led to a sharp reduction in sudden infant deaths.

With the positioner devices, if an infant rolls onto the stomach, the child’s mouth and nose can press up against a bolster or some other part of the device, leading to suffocation. Even if placed on the back, a child can move up or down in the positioner, “entrapping its face against a bolster or becoming trapped between the positioner and the crib side,” Gail Gantt, a nurse consultant with the Food and Drug Administration, said in an e-mail. Or the child might scoot down the wedge in a way that causes the child’s mouth and nose to press into the device.

“The baby’s movement may also cause the positioner to flip on top of the baby, trapping the baby underneath the positioner or between the positioner and the side of the crib,” she said.

Of the 13 babies known to have suffocated in a sleep positioner since 1997, most died after they rolled from their sides onto their stomachs. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also received dozens of reports of babies who were placed on their sides or backs, “only to be found later in hazardous positions within or next to the product,” the F.D.A. said in a statement.

Many baby books for new parents specifically urge against using sleep positioners, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not support their use for SIDS prevention. Though the F.D.A. has never approved the positioners for the prevention of SIDS, it has in the past approved a number of the devices for the prevention of gastroesophageal reflux disease and flat head syndrome. But the agency said that in light of the new safety data, it believed any benefits from using the devices were outweighed by the risk of suffocation.

As of Wednesday, the agency is explicitly advising parents to stop using sleep positioners, and it has asked manufacturers of the devices to submit clinical data showing that the benefits of their products outweigh the risk of serious harm. In addition to avoiding the devices, experts say, parents should keep things like pillows, comforters, quilts and bumpers away from their infants and their cribs. Soft bedding can increase the likelihood of a baby suffocating.

“The safest crib is a bare crib,” Dr. Susan Cummins, a pediatric expect with the F.D.A., said in a statement. “Always put your baby on his or her back to sleep. An easy way to remember this is to follow the ABC’s of safe sleep – Alone on the Back in a bare Crib.”

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DealBook: Judge Approves Hostess Brands' Plan to Close Down

A federal bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved plans for Hostess Brands to wind down its operations, but there is little doubt that its best-known brand, Twinkies, will live on.

The company, whose corporate ancestors go back 82 years, said it would put Twinkies on the auction block, along with its other famous brands, including Ho Hos, Sno Balls, Ring Dings and Wonder Bread.

In granting the motion by Hostess, Judge Robert D. Drain of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York said it was important to have a quick and orderly shutdown of the company to prevent the deterioration of its factories and assets.

The company’s chief executive, Gregory F. Rayburn, testified in court that he needed to lay off 15,000 of his 18,500 employees on Wednesday afternoon so that they could begin applying for unemployment benefits as soon as possible. He said such speed was necessary for maximizing the remaining value of the company.

“From this point forward, I need two things to happen,” Mr. Rayburn told the judge. “I need to maximize the value of the estate, and I need to do the best thing for the employees.”

Wednesday’s hearing came after a last-ditch mediation session on Tuesday between Hostess and its bakery workers union. After several hours of talks, the mediation efforts collapsed.

Hostess announced its intention to liquidate last Friday, and since then the company has received expressions of interest for its bakery brands from a wide range of potential buyers. Without naming names, an investment banker for Hostess, Joshua S. Scherer of Perella Weinberg Partners, said in court on Wednesday that they included regional bakeries, national competitors and retail customers along the lines of Wal-Mart Stores and Kroger.

Mr. Scherer added that his firm had plans to contact around 145 financial firms, including private equity shops and liquidators, to gauge their interest.

Investment concerns like Sun Capital Partners and C. Dean Metropoulos & Company, the owner of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, have already said that they are interested in buying some or all of Hostess’s remains. Sun Capital has said that it would like to buy all of Hostess, not just its brands, hoping to preserve the company and improve its often-tense relations with its unions.

Mr. Scherer said that he expected asset sales to reap “significant values,” perhaps more than $1 billion. Hostess had revenue of $2.5 billion in fiscal 2012, and a net loss of $1.1 billion.

Its famous brands have been sold and traded for decades among companies, including I.T.T., Ralston Purina and Continental Baking.

“These products will surely live on in one form or the other — because these brands are about as indestructible as Hostess’s baked goods are,” said Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for executive programs at the Yale School of Management.

Hostess was unable to resuscitate itself during this bankruptcy, its second in less than a decade. When it filed for bankruptcy last January, it had nearly $1 billion in debt and labor costs, and work rules that it insisted were unsustainable.

According to Mr. Raymond, what sent the company into bankruptcy was both the refusal of one of its largest unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, to accept far-reaching concessions and a strike that the union began on Nov. 9, crippling two-thirds of the company’s 33 bakeries.

The bakery workers union, with 5,600 workers at Hostess, repeatedly said that it saw no reason to grant a new round of givebacks — after having granted major concessions in the previous bankruptcy of Hostess — because it was convinced that Hostess was heading toward liquidation, with or without concessions. That union and Hostess’s other major union, the Teamsters, repeatedly asserted that the company was mismanaged, having had six different chief executives since 2002. The unions maintained that Hostess’s top management had done little to modernize the company’s aging bakeries or its sugary product offerings — in an era when the nation has grown increasingly health conscious.

After filing for bankruptcy protection in January, Hostess demanded lower-cost contracts from the Teamsters, whose workers at Hostess average about $20 an hour, and the bakery workers, who average about $16. To help the company survive, the Teamsters, with 6,700 members at Hostess, most of them drivers, reluctantly agreed to a contract with numerous concessions. They include new work rules, an immediate 8 percent pay cut, a 17 percent reduction in Hostess’s contribution toward health coverage and a suspension of its pension payments until 2015. In return, the company agreed to give its unions two of the nine seats on its board and a 25 percent stake in the company.

But the bakery workers’ union resisted a similar deal, convinced it would drive down wages in the industry while in no way guaranteeing Hostess’s survival. That union went on strike rather than accept that offer, hoping the company would bend.

A week after the strike began, Mr. Rayburn said he would liquidate the company.

The looming liquidation of Hostess has been a topic of debate, with many on one side criticizing greedy, stubborn labor unions and many on the other blaming what the bakery workers’ president has called “vulture capitalists.” The company entered its first bankruptcy in 2004 with $450 million in debt, and exited five years later with even more debt — $670 million.

“The private equity owners put this thing in such deep debt and asked for such deep concessions that it put the unions in a difficult situation,” said Thomas A. Kochan, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The unions weren’t sure whether these concessions would be enough to salvage the company.”

Hostess Brands has corporate roots going back to 1930, but the company has had that name only since 2009, when Ripplewood Holdings, the private equity firm that took control of Interstate Bakeries, renamed it. Ripplewood, which has close ties to Richard A. Gephardt, a former Democratic House majority leader and longtime ally of labor unions, is rarely viewed as a predatory private equity company — it originally bought Hostess as part of an effort to save distressed unionized companies.

“The company had plenty of time to figure out a new business model in terms of products, but it didn’t, so it was convenient to blame labor for the company’s failure,” said John W. Budd, a professor of industrial relations at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. “Hostess’s creditors weren’t willing to make any more concessions, so if they didn’t see a viable business model, that raises questions of why labor should be making more concessions.”

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Toll Rises as U.S. Pushes for Israel-Hamas Truce

JERUSALEM — Efforts to agree on a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas intensified on Tuesday, but the struggle to achieve even a brief pause in the fighting emphasized the obstacles to finding any lasting solution.

On the deadliest day of fighting in the week-old conflict, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived hurriedly in Jerusalem and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to push for a truce. She was due in Cairo on Wednesday to consult with Egyptian officials in contact with Hamas, placing her and the Obama administration at the center of a fraught process with multiple parties, interests and demands.

Officials on all sides had raised expectations that a cease-fire would begin around midnight, followed by negotiations for a longer-term agreement. But by the end of Tuesday, officials with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that governs Gaza, said any announcement would not come at least until Wednesday.

The Israelis, who have amassed tens of thousands of troops on the Gaza border and have threatened to invade for a second time in four years to end the rocket fire from Gaza, never publicly backed the idea of a short break in fighting. They said they were open to a diplomatic accord but were looking for something more enduring.

“If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem through diplomatic means, we prefer that,” Mr. Netanyahu said before meeting with Ms. Clinton at his office. “But if not, I’m sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever actions necessary to defend its people.”

Mrs. Clinton spoke of the need for “a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike.” It was unclear whether she was starting a complex task of shuttle diplomacy or whether she expected to achieve a pause in the hostilities and then head home.

The diplomatic moves came as the antagonists on both sides stepped up their attacks. Israeli aerial and naval forces assaulted several Gaza targets in multiple strikes, including a suspected rocket-launching site near Al Shifa Hospital. That attack killed more than a dozen people, bringing the total number of fatalities in Gaza to more than 130 — roughly half of them civilians, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

A delegation visiting from the Arab League canceled a news conference at the hospital because of the Israeli aerial assaults as wailing ambulances brought victims in, some of them decapitated.

The Israeli assaults carried into early Wednesday, with multiple blasts punctuating the otherwise darkened Gaza skies.

Militants in Gaza fired a barrage of at least 200 rockets into Israel, killing an Israeli soldier — the first military casualty on the Israeli side since the hostilities broke out. The Israeli military said the soldier, identified as Yosef Fartuk, 18, had died from a rocket strike that hit an area near Gaza. Israeli officials said a civilian military contractor working near the Gaza border was also killed, bringing the number of fatalities in Israel from the week of rocket mayhem to five.

Other Palestinian rockets hit the southern Israeli cities of Beersheba and Ashdod, and longer-range rockets were fired at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Neither main city was struck, and no casualties were reported. One Gaza rocket hit a building in Rishon LeZion, just south of Tel Aviv, injuring one person and wrecking the top three floors.

Senior Egyptian officials in Cairo said Israel and Hamas were “very close” to a cease-fire agreement. “We have not received final approval, but I hope to receive it any moment,” said Essam el-Haddad, President Mohamed Morsi’s top foreign affairs adviser.

Foreign diplomats who were briefed on the outlines of a tentative agreement said it had been structured in stages — first, an announcement of a cease-fire, followed by its implementation for 48 hours. That would allow time for Mrs. Clinton to involve herself in the process on the ground here and create a window for negotiators to agree on conditions for a longer-term cessation of hostilities.

But it seemed that each side had steep demands of a longer-term deal that the other side would reject.

Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, said in Cairo that Israel needed to end its blockade of Gaza. Israel says the blockade keeps arms from entering the coastal strip.

Ethan Bronner reported from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram from Gaza; Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; Peter Baker from Phnom Penh, Cambodia; David E. Sanger and Mark Landler from Washington; and Rick Gladstone from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 20, 2012

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the family name of the Israeli soldier who was killed in a Palestinian rocket attack on Tuesday. He is Yosef Fartuk, not Yosef Faruk. 

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DealBook: Latest Slip for H.P. Forces a New Write-Down

Hewlett-Packard‘s already troubled history with deal-making just got worse.

The technology giant said on Tuesday that it had taken an $8.8 billion accounting charge, in part related to accounting problems at Autonomy, the British software company it bought for $10 billion last year. The announcement comes just one quarter after another large write-down by H.P. in relation to Electronic Data Systems, which itself follows a string of deal-making missteps by the company.

“I’m speechless,” said Brian Marshall, an analyst at the ISI Group, which downgraded H.P. to “neutral” from “buy” following the news on Tuesday.

The charge contributed to a quarterly loss of $6.9 billion for H.P., compared with a $200 million profit in the quarter a year earlier. H.P. said it had discovered “serious accounting improprieties” and “outright misrepresentations” at Automony that took place prior to the acquisition.

The company’s shares fell more than 11 percent on Tuesday to around $11.74.

The latest setback comes as H.P. has struggled to revive its business. For years, H.P. has turned to deal-making to help it grow, buying E.D.S., Palm and Compaq. Since 2001, the company has spent at least $67 billion on acquisitions, according to Robert W. Baird & Company. That’s more than H.P.’s current market capitalization of about $23.4 billion.

“If you think about the companies they’ve acquired over the last several years,” Mr. Marshall said, “it’s just unbelievable how much value has been destroyed.”

In August, H.P. said it would take an $8 billion charge related to E.D.S., which it acquired for $13.9 billion four years earlier. The business, which provides consulting services to enterprise clients, had been losing ground to rivals.

Last year, H.P. announced a $1.7 billion charge when it said it would close its webOS device business — just a year after picking up the handset maker Palm for $1.2 billion.

The deal-making engine, however, has recently slowed as its cash pile has dwindled. The company reported about $11.3 billion of cash in the recent quarter. While that was an improvement over the quarter last year, it is lower than the $13 billion of cash in 2009.

The takeover of Autonomy was criticized as too expensive when it was announced in the summer of 2011. Léo Apotheker, the chief executive at the time, soon resigned. He was replaced by Meg Whitman, a former head of eBay.

Ms. Whitman said on Tuesday that the company was “starting to see progress in key areas.” The company said in a statement that it remained “100 percent committed” to Autonomy, despite being “extremely disappointed” by its findings.

Some analysts had been skeptical of Autonomy before Tuesday’s announcement. But the size of the write-down was largely unexpected. And the language H.P. used — “improprieties” and “misrepresentations” — came as a surprise.

“That’s not something I expected to hear,” said Jayson Noland, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Company.

The ISI analyst, Mr. Marshall, described the company as being in “free fall.”

“There has been perhaps irreparable damage to the franchise,” Mr. Marshall said. “A lot of people in the tech industry are pretty sad about that.”

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Global Update: Meningitis Vaccine Gets Longer Window Without Refrigeration

In what may prove to be a major advance for Africa’s “meningitis belt,” regulatory authorities have decided that a new meningitis vaccine could be stored without refrigeration for up to four days.

The announcement was made last week at a conference in Atlanta of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While a few days may seem trivial, the hardest part of protecting poor countries is often keeping a vaccine cold while moving it from electrified cities to villages with no power. In antipolio drives, for example, the freezers, generators and fuel needed to make ice for the shoulder bags of vaccinators can cost more than the vaccine.

The new vaccine, MenAfriVac, made in India for 50 cents a dose, was introduced in 2010. In bad years, epidemics during the hot harmattan winds have killed as many as 25,000 Africans and disabled 50,000 more. In Chad this year, vaccination drove down cases to near zero in districts where it was used, while others nearby had serious outbreaks.

Experts decided that the vaccine is safe for four days as long as it stays below 104 degrees.

While temperatures get higher than that in Africa, said Dr. Godwin Enwere, medical director for the Meningitis Vaccine Project, teams normally get the vaccine out of coolers at dawn, drive to villages and finish before the day heats up. Other experts said it should be kept in the shade and monitored with colored paper “dots” that darken after hours in the heat.

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Global Update: Meningitis Vaccine Gets Longer Window Without Refrigeration

In what may prove to be a major advance for Africa’s “meningitis belt,” regulatory authorities have decided that a new meningitis vaccine could be stored without refrigeration for up to four days.

The announcement was made last week at a conference in Atlanta of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While a few days may seem trivial, the hardest part of protecting poor countries is often keeping a vaccine cold while moving it from electrified cities to villages with no power. In antipolio drives, for example, the freezers, generators and fuel needed to make ice for the shoulder bags of vaccinators can cost more than the vaccine.

The new vaccine, MenAfriVac, made in India for 50 cents a dose, was introduced in 2010. In bad years, epidemics during the hot harmattan winds have killed as many as 25,000 Africans and disabled 50,000 more. In Chad this year, vaccination drove down cases to near zero in districts where it was used, while others nearby had serious outbreaks.

Experts decided that the vaccine is safe for four days as long as it stays below 104 degrees.

While temperatures get higher than that in Africa, said Dr. Godwin Enwere, medical director for the Meningitis Vaccine Project, teams normally get the vaccine out of coolers at dawn, drive to villages and finish before the day heats up. Other experts said it should be kept in the shade and monitored with colored paper “dots” that darken after hours in the heat.

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DealBook: Ex-Trader Charged in $276 Million Insider Scheme

Over the last half-decade, as federal authorities secured dozens of insider trading convictions against hedge fund traders, they have tried doggedly to build a case against one of Wall Street’s most influential players: the billionaire stock picker Steven A. Cohen.

On Tuesday, the government appeared to inch closer to that goal. Prosecutors brought charges against a former portfolio manager at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors in a case that for the first time directly involves Mr. Cohen, the fund’s founder.

Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager at CR Intrinsic, a unit of SAC, was charged with making more than $276 million in a combination of illegal profits and avoided losses by obtaining secret information from a doctor about clinical trials for an Alzheimer’s drug being developed by the companies Elan and Wyeth.

The case is “the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever charged,” said Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, who brought the charges in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

It also draws in Mr. Cohen, whose fund has been in the cross hairs of government investigators since the crackdown on insider trading began. Though not charged or mentioned by name, Mr. Cohen is referred to repeatedly in the government’s court filings as either “Portfolio Manager A” or the “owner” of the funds involved. People briefed on the case confirmed that the reference was to Mr. Cohen.

Mr. Martoma worked closely with Mr. Cohen in buying and selling large blocks of Elan and Wyeth shares, according to a lawsuit also filed on Tuesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The government does not say that Mr. Cohen — who has not been charged in the case — knew that Mr. Martoma had confidential information about the companies’ Alzheimer drug when he bought and sold the stocks.

“Mr. Cohen and SAC are confident that they have acted appropriately and will continue to cooperate with the government’s inquiry,” said Jonathan Gasthalter, a SAC spokesman.

From the middle of an expansive trading floor in SAC’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters, Mr. Cohen, 56, oversees a fund that manages about $13 billion and, including borrowing from banks, possesses about $39 billion in total buying power. The fund, which has about 900 employees, has generated some of the best investment returns on Wall Street, averaging about 30 percent over the last two decades.

Though the case against Mr. Martoma is the first time the government has pointed to Mr. Cohen’s participation in a trade that may have been improper, it is the latest in a spate of insider trading prosecutions of former SAC employees. At least seven former SAC employees have been tied to the government’s multiyear investigation; three of them have pleaded to insider trading while working for Mr. Cohen.

Previous cases involving SAC have highlighted the firm’s unusual structure: traders are allocated money and invest on their own with little direct input from Mr. Cohen. But in this case, Mr. Cohen is said to have had numerous contacts with Mr. Martoma and appeared to collaborate closely with him.

“The law of averages would tell you that all of these instances at one firm are not coincidences,” said Mark Zauderer, a securities lawyer in New York. “People take their cues from the top, and these cases must reflect a culture there.”

F.B.I. agents arrested Mr. Martoma, 38, early Tuesday morning at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was released on bail after making an appearance in Federal District Court in West Palm Beach. Mr. Martoma, who has been unemployed since leaving SAC in 2010, is expected to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Monday and enter a plea.

“Mathew Martoma was an exceptional portfolio manager who succeeded through hard work and the dogged pursuit of information in the public domain,” said his lawyer, Charles A. Stillman. “What happened today is only the beginning of a process that we are confident will lead to Mr. Martoma’s full exoneration.”

Also accused in the scheme by the Securities Exchange Commission on Tuesday was Sidney Gilman, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan. The S.E.C. said Dr. Gilman, 80, an Alzheimer’s expert who helped oversee the clinical trials for the drug, gave Mr. Martoma the confidential information.

Dr. Gilman is cooperating with the government and has entered into a nonprosecution with the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, meaning that criminal charges will not be brought against him. Marc Mukasey, a lawyer for Dr. Gilman, said that he expected the S.E.C.’s case to be resolved shortly.

Mr. Martoma met Dr. Gilman through the Gerson Lehrman Group, a so-called expert network firm based in New York. Once an obscure pocket of Wall Street, expert network firms became popular among the hedge fund set in the last decade as a way to gain an investment edge. The services linked traders to specialists and consultants in various industries.

But these firms came under scrutiny after the government brought more than a dozen insider trading cases involving these expert networks. In some cases, hedge fund managers paid outside consultants handsome fees for providing confidential information about publicly traded companies. In others, the government charged executives at the expert network firms with knowingly facilitating the exchange of illegal stock tips.

A spokesman for Gerson Lehrman declined to comment. The government’s complaint details how Dr. Gilman hid his communications about the trial from the expert network firm.

Dr. Gilman’s consulting work for Mr. Martoma earned him about $108,000, according to court filings. Based in part on Dr. Gilman’s leaks about positive developments related to the clinical trials of a new Alzheimer’s drug, SAC accumulated a roughly $700 million position in the stocks of Wyeth and Elan, according to the government.

The S.E.C. said that the fund’s owner, Mr. Cohen, took a large position in Wyeth and Elan in his personal portfolio based on Mr. Martoma’s recommendation. Mr. Cohen maintained his holdings even though there was significant debate about the wisdom of such a large position in the companies, the government said.

But in July 2008, as the trials neared completion, Dr. Gilman told Mr. Martoma that patients were experiencing serious side effects, prosecutors say. Afterward, Mr. Martoma e-mailed Mr. Cohen, telling him “it’s important” that they speak. They spoke on the phone for nearly 20 minutes, the government says, and Mr. Martoma told his boss that he was no longer “comfortable” with the investments.

The following day, SAC reversed course. Mr. Cohen’s head trader sold the firm’s entire inventory of roughly 10.5 million shares of Elan and about seven million shares of Wyeth, the government said. Once it had dumped the shares, SAC built a short position in the two stocks, betting their value would drop.

According to the S.E.C., the trader, Mr. Cohen and Mr. Martoma kept the sales confidential. The trade, wrote the head trader in an e-mail to Mr. Cohen, “was executed quietly and efficiently over a four-day period through algos and darkpools” — referring to trades using algorithms and to trading platforms that do not have the same reporting requirements as the stock exchanges — “and booked into two firm accounts that have very limited viewing access.”

After the companies announced the results of the trials, Elan’s stock fell about 42 percent and Wyeth’s about 12 percent.

The trading allowed SAC to avoid about $194 million in losses and earn about $83 million in profits on Elan and Wyeth, according to prosecutors.

At the end of 2008, Mr. Martoma received a bonus of about $9.3 million, the S.E.C. said. Mr. Martoma’s stock picks were less successful in 2009 and 2010, and he received no bonuses then.

According to the government, in 2010 an SAC executive suggested in an e-mail that the firm let Mr. Martoma go, describing him as a “one-trick pony.”

SAC CAPITAL UNDER A MICROSCOPE The firm has been under a cloud since a former employee, Richard Choo-Beng Lee, pleaded guilty in 2009 to insider trading and began helping the government in its investigation. The crimes he confessed to were committed after he left SAC, but he agreed to provide information about his five years at the firm, which ended in 2004.

NAMES	THE CASES
Jonathan Hollander	The former analyst paid more than $220,000 to settle civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission accusing him of trading in his personal account on confidential information about the 2006 takeover of the Albertsons grocery store chain.
Jon Horvath and Michael Steinberg	Mr. Horvath, right, a former technology industry analyst, pleaded guilty in September to participating in a conspiracy that illegally traded in the shares of Dell computer. His boss, the former portfolio manager Mr. Steinberg, has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator but has not been charged in the case. Federal prosecutors contend they were part of a seven-person conspiracy — a “circle of friends” — that earned about $62 million in illegal gains trading on secret tips from executives at publicly traded technology companies.
Donald Longueuil and Noah Freeman	The two former portfolio managers admitted in 2011 to trading on illegal tips about publicly traded technology companies. Mr. Longueuil, right, was swept up in a crackdown on so-called expert networks. He is one of roughly a dozen implicated in the case. Mr. Longueuil is serving a two-and-a-half-year jail term at a federal prison in Otisville, N.Y.; Mr. Freeman, who is cooperating with prosecutors, has yet to be sentenced.
Mathew Martoma	The former trader at CR Intrinsic, a unit of the hedge fund, was charged with making about $276 million in combined profits and avoided losses by obtaining confidential information about a drug trial for an Alzheimer’s drug developed by the pharmaceutical companies Elan and Wyeth.

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