Israel security cabinet approves more Gaza operations

JERUSALEM, Nov 22 (Reuters) Israel's security cabinet today agreed to press ahead with military raids in Gaza but did not opt for a large-scale assault in response to a wave of Palestinian rocket attacks, political sources said.

They said the army would keep targeting rocket-launching squads and try to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip from neighbouring Egypt.

But no detailed plans for any major offensive were presented or discussed, the sources said. No vote was taken.

Some cabinet members had wanted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to take tougher action to halt rocket salvos amid growing frustration in 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.

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, the political sources said.

But military chief Lieutentant-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.

INTERNATIONAL DEAL 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. That conflict was sparked when Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

In fresh fighting in Gaza, Israeli forces backed by tanks and armoured vehicles killed a gunman from the ruling Hamas movement in the northern part of the territory, Palestinian hospital officials said.

The army said one soldier was moderately 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 homemade rockets at Israel since the shelling of Beit Hanoun two weeks ago. Several landed on Wednesday, including one near a school in the town of Sderot, where the two Israelis were killed in the past week.

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.

Israel has killed more than 370 Palestinians in Gaza, about half of them civilians, since it began the offensive, hospital officials and residents say. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed.

REUTERS LL RK1636