Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday warned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu against launching a new war on Gaza, as they met in a bid to break the impasse in Middle East peace negotiations. During talks at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Mubarak cautioned the visiting prime minister after Israeli troops traded fire with militants in the Palestinian enclave.
Mubarak told Netanyahu of the "danger of the latest Israeli threats and their repercussions on the stability and security of the region and the cause of Middle East peace," Egypt's official MENA news agency reported.
"Mubarak affirmed Egypt's rejection of any new offensive on Gaza," said the report. Israel's military said a projectile, probably a mortar shell, was fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip hours before Netanyahu flew to Sharm el-Sheikh for the meeting.
The rocket attack came after Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian men the military said were trying to breach the border late Wednesday night. Earlier that day, militants fired seven rockets into Israel without causing any damage, the army said.
Tensions have been rising along the heavily guarded border of the blockaded enclave over continued rocket fire into the Jewish state and retaliatory and often deadly Israeli air raids.
Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said last month that Israel would be forced to "respond and respond with all our force" if the militants kept firing rockets into the Jewish state. The militant Islamic Jihad group has said it is prepared for war, and Hamas threatened Israel last month with an unspecified secret weapon it said it possessed. Mubarak also warned Netanyahu of the repercussions of the fighting on already deadlocked peace talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who has been based in the West Bank after Hamas routed his forces from Gaza in 2007.
Direct talks between Netanyahu and Abbas stalled in September last year over the construction of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want for a future state.
Mubarak "affirmed that it was necessary for Israel to revisit its stances and policies, and to take tangible steps to build trust" with the Palestinians, MENA reported. After the meeting, a message on Netanyahu's Twitter account said he expressed "his appreciation for the Egyptian role in working to push forward the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians."
One of the stumbling blocks to any peace deal is the rift between Abbas and Hamas, which rejects talks with Israel. Israel and Egypt imposed a semi-blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized it, and Egypt has failed to mediate a unity government between the Palestinian factions.
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