Israel gets OK to expand Gaza operations

Israel's army received approval Monday to broaden its ground operations against Gaza Strip militants who have been barraging Israeli border towns with deadly rocket fire, but no large-scale incursion is in the works, military officials said.

The Israeli campaign _ which has relied primarily on intensified airstrikes in the past two weeks _ has forced Hamas leaders to lie low in recent days. On Monday, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas stayed away from a weekly Cabinet meeting in Gaza City.

In the meantime, a lull in internal Palestinian strife appeared to be growing ever more brittle, with rival Hamas and Fatah gunmen clashing briefly, and putting up roadblocks around Gaza City that all but emptied the streets.

Under the new Israeli military orders, larger numbers of troops will be able to enter Gaza to carry out pinpoint raids, the military officials said. But no widespread campaign is expected at this time, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy.

Past large-scale offensives have failed to quell the rocket fire.

The authorization to pour more troops into Gaza came just a day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he would let the army do whatever necessary to halt the rocket fire.

Olmert cautioned, however, that there was no failproof solution to the crude rockets the Palestinians are firing. On Sunday, the second Israeli was killed in a week in an attack on the southern town of Sderot, a frequent target.

Gaza militants fired eight rockets that landed in southern Israel on Monday, slightly injuring one person. One fell as Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the leader of the Labor Party, voted in party primaries in Sderot.

"If there is an answer to terror, it is that the state of Israel is living and breathing, and in Sderot there are elections," Peretz said.

The outcome of the party race could impact the stability of Olmert's government and the embattled prime minister's future. Peretz is expected to lose, and both front-runners have said they would work to topple Olmert.

About 50 Palestinians, most of them militants, have died in 12 days of Israeli airstrikes.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, Abbas' spokesman, said Monday that the Palestinian president would keep trying to forge a new truce, though Olmert has appeared cool to the idea and Palestinian faction officials have said there could be no truce as long as Israel continues its attacks.

Israeli airstrikes appear to have hit Hamas hard _ knocking out key bases, killing several top militants and forcing the movement's leadership underground. Israel has so far avoided attacks on Hamas leaders _ a tactic it used in the past. Hamas is now the senior partner in the Palestinian coalition government.

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Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb in Gaza City contributed to this article.