Israel injures two in Gaza air strike-residents

GAZA, May 31 (Reuters) Israel launched new air strikes against Palestinian rocket crews in the Gaza Strip today, injuring two people as it pressed Hamas and other militant groups to stop their cross-border attacks.

Local residents said they saw two small ground forces entering Gaza, taking up positions near towns in the north and the south of the coastal strip. The Israeli army described the ground operations as routine.

One of the early morning air strikes hit a rocket launching position shortly after it fired into Israel.

''There were several rocket launchers. One launched and at least one other rocket launcher was ready to launch,'' said an Israeli army spokesman.

A second Israeli air strike targeted a group of militants who had launched rockets, the army said.

The Popular Resistance Committees militant group said two of its militants were slightly wounded after they fired two rockets towards the nearby Israeli town of Sderot.

''We will continue to bombard Zionist settlements until the occupier is dismissed from our land,'' the group said, defying Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's call for a ceasefire.

Israel has likewise rebuffed Abbas's call for a ceasefire under which Gaza militants would halt rocket attacks and Israel would stop its bombing campaign.

Militants have fired more than 270 rockets from Gaza, killing two Israelis, over the past two weeks. Hamas claimed responsibility for firing most of the rockets, although it has not carried out any attacks in the last two days.

Israel has hit back mainly with air strikes, killing nearly 50 Palestinians, most of them fighters.

Hamas, which formed a unity government with Abbas's Fatah faction two months ago, says any ceasefire must include an immediate end to all Israeli attacks in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a demand rejected repeatedly by Israel.

Abbas said he will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on June 7. An Olmert spokeswoman said the upcoming talks were likely to take place in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Officials said Olmert planned to travel to Washington later next month for talks with US President George W. Bush on how to revive peacemaking clouded by the current surge of violence.

REUTERS PJ ND164