Nearly 100 Palestinians have been killed this week in an ongoing Israeli offensive aimed at stopping rocket fire from Hamas. Hamas leaders promised a "long battle" with Israel on Friday: "We have prepared ourselves for a very long battle, not for a week or 10 days, as some have said, but for many long weeks," the group said in a statement.

[Visiting U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon shakes hands with President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in Moscow on Thursday. Image via Sergei Ilnitsky/AP.]

A comedy duo from Montreal known as the Masked Avengers successfully pranked called U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Wednesday afternoon. Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel pretended to be Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Ban bought the act, or at least until the duo made a strange crack about Harper's hair.

Ever gotten drunk and said something regrettable to a coworker? It's embarrassing, but it's hardly an international incident. Unless you work for the UN—like Chinese diplomat Sha Zukang, who told an American colleague that he doesn't like Americans.

Flooding in Pakistan has already left an estimated 20 million people homeless and killed at least 1,500. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited flooded areas and appealed for help: "The scale of this disaster is so large." [BBC; Getty]

Dustin Hoffman's starring in the Deadwood guy's new series. The Dancing with the Stars cast is out. Everyone's partying at the Oscars. The UN pitches movies. Welcome to the roundup, care for a cookie? Too bad. We don't have any.

Blow a kiss in Adriana Lima's direction. The supermodel turns 28 today. Others celebrating: Yankees star Hideki Matsui is turning 35. Deputy mayor Kevin Sheekey is turning 43. David Rockefeller is 94. Sports Marv Albert is turning 68. Real estate broker Michele Kleier is 66. Hunter College president Jennifer Raab turns 53. Kendra Wilkinson is turning 24. And George H. W. Bush celebrates his 85th birthday today. Weekend birthdays—including those of the Olsen twins and Donald Trump—after the jump.

The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center hosted its second annual Spring Ball at the Plaza on Tuesday night. More than 350 people turned out for the NBC Universal-sponsored event, including NBC Universal president Jeff Zucker and his wife Caryn (left), Mort Zuckerman, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Julia and David Koch, Tory Burch and Lyor Cohen, Hilary Geary and Wilbur Ross, Jonathan and Somers White Farkas, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss, Peter and Jamee Gregory, Ginny and Tiki Barber, Sherman and Chris Meloni, Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford, Hoda Kotb, Peggy Siegal, Natalie Morales, Valesca Guerrand Hermes, Jennifer Creel, Renee Rockefeller, Alexandra Lebenthal and Jay Diamond, Danielle Ganek, Kimberly Kravis, Muffie Potter Aston, Hilary Gumbel, Dr. Harold Varmus, Dennis Basso, Heather Mnuchin, Anne Grauso, Sylvester and Gillian Miniter, Gigi Mortimer, Sara Ayres, Shafi Roepers, Leslie Jones, and LL Cool J. [PMc, Wireimage, NYSD]

You may just be excited to have a job right now. But some people have it really good: The Daily News has a rundown of New Yorkers who get sweet, free apartments as part of their jobs. Included on the list is UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (five-story townhouse on Sutton Place), Columbia President Lee Bollinger (his Morningside Heights house is worth an estimated $19.8 million), Michael Bloomberg (Gracie Mansion comes with the job although he doesn't actually live there), and a bunch of pageant girls (Miss USA, Teen USA, etc.) Also included: Cardinal Edward Egan (left) lives in a 48,550-square-foot Madison Avenue mansion right behind St. Patrick's. (Yes, you read that number right.) Of course, he's also had to devote his life to God and abstain from sex all these years in order to qualify for the sweet housing arrangement, a trade-off that not too many people would be willing to make.

Everyone's favorite set of child-star-turned-media-tycoon twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, turn 22 today. Congrats, girls. We expect there'll be lots of shots involved in your celebration tonight, although we're guessing you decided to forgo the birthday cake. Also celebrating around town today: U.N. head honcho Ban Ki-Moon turns 64. Portly congressman Jerry Nadler is 61. Celebrating tomorrow: Donald Trump will turn 63, although with that rug on his head, he doesn't look a day over 62. CNN's Campbell Brown turns the big 4-0. Book editor Alice Mayhew will be 72. Hedge fund tycoon Stanley Druckenmiller will be 56. Restauranteur Phil Suarez turns 68. And veteran sportscaster Len Berman will be 62.

Formerly South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-Moon became the world's most important civil servant in 2007 when he took over the job of Secretary-General of the United Nations from Kofi Annan.