Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's senior ministers were expected yesterday to approve intensified operations against Gaza Strip rocket squads, but to stop short of authorizing a large-scale operation to try to stop daily attacks on southern Israel, government officials said.
The rocket fire generates great panic in areas of southern Israel that are frequent targets, but harsh military action is liable to upset efforts to revive the peace process. Israeli defense officials have cautioned that the Gaza Strip is becoming a powder keg as militants smuggle in weapons from Egypt and militants affiliated with the ruling Hamas movement become involved in the rocket fire.
The rocket fire rarely causes casualties but violates a November ceasefire with Gaza militants. Three missiles were launched early yesterday, but no one was hurt, the army said.
Israel's so-called Security Cabinet was debating how to respond to the rocket fire at a time of increased diplomatic activity designed to prod Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.
Bad weather forced Jordan's King Abdullah to cancel plans to fly to the occupied West Bank yesterday for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Palestinian official said.
"The king's visit today has been postponed because of bad weather conditions and arrangements are being made to hold this meeting in a few days' time," said Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah.
Olmert and Abdullah are to talk about the initiative tomorrow in a meeting in Petra, Jordan, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni talked about the plan last week with her Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts in Cairo.
At the Security Cabinet meeting, senior defense officials were to present a range of options to counter the rocket fire. While senior commanders support a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip, most of the defense establishment does not, defense officials said yesterday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the press.
The defense officials will propose increased strikes against rocket-launchers and operations in outlying areas of the Gaza Strip where the projectiles are fired, they said.
Israeli ministers, including Defense Minister Amir Peretz, do not at this time support a large operation in Gaza, government officials said yesterday.
"I think that at this moment a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip won't bring solutions," said Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a member of the Security Cabinet and a former defense minister and military chief of staff.
Mofaz said he thought pinpoint air strikes against rocket squads and limited ground operations would be more effective.
Such action would not constitute a drastic change in Israel's current retaliation practices, but could further unravel the truce Israel and Gaza militants reached in November following a harsh Israeli military campaign that killed hundreds of militants but provoked radicals to increase the rocket fire.
Moderate Arab states are pressing Israel to accept a Saudi Arabian peace plan that would trade a full Israeli withdrawal from areas captured in 1967 for Arab states' recognition of Israel.
Abdullah's meetings with Abbas and Olmert this week signified an increased effort to push forward talks on the plan, which had been presented by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and was revived in March.
Israel and the US have said the proposal could be a basis for reviving Arab-Israeli peacemaking. But Israel has expressed reservations over many of its provisions, including the call to solve the Palestinian refugee issue.
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