Israel's security cabinet on Wednesday agreed to press on with military raids and "targeted killings" in Gaza but did not order a large-scale assault in response to a wave of Palestinian rocket attacks. A government statement said the security forces had been told to prepare and present a plan for a broader operation.
Hours later, more Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles rolled into northern Gaza, joining forces already there, witnesses said. Israeli soldiers killed two gunmen from the governing Hamas movement in clashes, Palestinian hospital officials said.
Some cabinet members had wanted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to approve tougher action to halt rocket salvos aimed at towns and villages that border Gaza.
A large-scale offensive, however, holds political risks for Olmert, whose popularity plummeted in opinion polls after Israel failed in the recent Lebanon war to crush Hezbollah guerrillas.
The statement said the security cabinet decided to continue operations against rocket-launching squads and targeted killings of those involved in "terror activities". It also called for continued co-operation with Cairo to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
Olmert, aware of the international scrutiny of Israel's operations in Gaza, last week appeared to rule out a massive assault, saying rockets could not be halted in "one fell swoop". The increasingly sophisticated weapons, generally made in metal workshops, killed two Israelis in the past week.
Militants say the missiles are a response to Israeli army assaults, including artillery shelling on November 8 that killed 19 civilians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. Israel said it made a targeting error.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter repeated his call for a large offensive in Gaza at the security cabinet meeting, political sources said. But military chief Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz shot this down, asking what would happen after a major push.
"There has to be a (diplomatic) horizon," Halutz said without elaborating, according to one source. Separate political sources said some Israeli officials had mooted the idea of an internationally brokered deal to end the fighting and possibly allow deployment of foreign peacekeepers in Gaza, but discussion was at a very early stage.
Israel is watching whether thousands of international troops arrayed across southern Lebanon can keep the peace in the wake of last summer's war. In the fresh fighting in Gaza, the army said one soldier was wounded when he was hit by an anti-tank rocket near Beit Hanoun. Several other Palestinians were wounded, including two schoolgirls who were hit by Israeli gunfire in Beit Hanoun, hospital officials said.
Militants have fired 100 home-made rockets at Israel since the shelling of Beit Hanoun two weeks ago. Israeli forces and settlers quit Gaza last year, but the military renewed ground operations after militants captured an Israeli soldier in a deadly border raid in June. Since then, Israel has killed more than 370 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, hospital officials and residents say. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.