JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Sunday that the military would not halt its offensive in the northern Gaza Strip until Palestinian rocket fire toward Israel was significantly reduced.
On Sunday, the fifth consecutive day of fighting, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians, two of them militants and the other a security official, Palestinian medical workers said. The fighting, which included an Israeli airstrike, again took place in and around Beit Hanun, the northern Gaza town that has been the focus of the Israeli operation.
Large numbers of Israeli troops have been operating in Beit Hanun since Wednesday, though they have not been able to stop Palestinians from firing the locally manufactured rockets, known as Qassams. Palestinian militants fired at least 10 more rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, but they caused no major damage or serious injuries. The Palestinians have launched more than 30 since the Israeli incursion in the area, the Israeli military said.
"We have declared that we will never accept the ongoing Qassam fire and that we will take any steps needed to considerably reduce the fire," Olmert said Sunday at his weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. "The operation is limited in time, but we have no intention of announcing when it will end."
The Palestinians, meanwhile, have called for international pressure on Israel to halt the offensive.
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"I urge members of the international community to take the appropriate response to Israel's crimes in Gaza," said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. "Condemnation is the least one would expect."
More than 40 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed over the past five days. One Israeli soldier has died. The Israeli forces have detained 30 people suspected of being militants, the military said.
In another development, a Palestinian lawmaker, Mustafa Barghouti, said that he was brokering the latest attempt at a Palestinian national unity government and that an agreement could be reached in days.
The proposal calls for a government of technocrats not directly linked to any party. Hamas, the militant Islamic group that now leads the government, and Fatah, the secular nationalist movement that lost the elections but whose leader still holds the Palestinian presidency, would approve members of the new government.
The Palestinians have been conducting talks for months on forming a unity government. Palestinians have expressed hope that a new government might win a restoration of Western aid, which was cut after Hamas came to power.
The United States and the European Union, with Israel, have demanded that a Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian pacts.
