Israel killed two Hamas militants in an air strike in the Gaza Strip yesterday and announced it was not considering a ceasefire with the Islamist group despite appeals by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Noting a "relative decrease in Qassam rocket launchings," Israel's security Cabinet decided to continue "attacks and military pressure on terrorist groups, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said in a statement.
"It was emphasized [at the meeting] that Israel is not conducting any negotiations for a ceasefire with the terrorist organizations," the statement said.
On Tuesday Abbas proposed a truce covering the Gaza Strip, and then extending the ceasefire to the occupied West Bank within a month.
Abbas will meet Olmert on June 7 and prospects for any revival of peacemaking have been clouded by the current surge of violence.
Meanwhile, Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal vowed in an interview that his group will continue attacks despite Israel's pounding of targets in Gaza that has killed 50 people in the past two weeks, most of them gunmen.
Meshaal vowed in an interview with Britain's the Guardian that the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) would continue to fight Israel.
"Under occupation people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he was quoted as saying from his office in Damascus.
"The occupiers always have the means to hurt the people they control. The Palestinians have only modest means, so they defend themselves however they can," he told the newspaper.
Meshaal said armed resistance would eventually drive Israel out of the occupied Palestinian territories.
"What caused Sharon to leave Gaza, Barak to leave Lebanon in 2000?" he asked, referring to former Israeli prime ministers. "And look what's going on in Iraq where the greatest power in the world is facing confusion because of Iraqi resistance."
Israel's security Cabinet was due to meet yesterday to consider calls to step up army operations in Gaza.
"Hamas takes advantage of any calm to reinforce itself and prepare attacks against Israel, something that Israel must not allow," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told public radio ahead of the meeting.
"Hamas leadership must be included in the list of targets," said another security Cabinet member, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Israel resumed deadly air strikes on militants in Gaza two weeks ago in response to a sharp increase in rocket launchings from the territory amid fierce street battles between Hamas and Fatah.
The Israeli raids have so far killed 13 civilians and 37 militants, mostly from Hamas, but have failed to halt the rockets.
Nearly 270 projectiles having been fired at Israel since May 15, according to the Israeli army.
Two civilians have been killed in the attacks, which wounded 20 others and sent hundreds fleeing from the southern town of Sderot that has borne the brunt of the fire.
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