Middle East: Ehud Olmert told his cabinet yesterday there was no "timetable" for Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip and that he could not say "how long it will continue". The comments by the Israeli prime minister came a day after he rejected a call by Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh for a ceasefire.
"We're talking about a war that will continue for a long time and it is complicated," Mr Olmert was quoted as saying at the weekly cabinet meeting.
On Saturday, Mr Haniyeh called for a general ceasefire, saying in a statement that "in order to extricate ourselves from the current crisis, all sides must restore calm and mutually end all military operations".
But sources close to Mr Olmert said Israel was demanding the release of an abducted Israeli soldier being held captive by Palestinian militants in Gaza and an end to the firing of rockets by militants from the coastal strip into Israel as a condition for withdrawing its forces and ending its military incursion.
The Hamas-led government has backed demands by militants for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in exchange for the soldier, 19-year-old Cpl Gilad Shalit, who was snatched from a base inside Israel two weeks ago. But Mr Olmert has consistently rejected this demand, saying he will not yield to "extortion".
He told ministers yesterday he had been planning to free some of the 8,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel as a goodwill gesture to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, before Cpl Shalit's abduction.
"But we intended to release them to moderate elements and not to terrorist elements. The release of prisoners means destroying the moderates in the Palestinian Authority, and would signal to the world that Israel can only talk to extremists," he said.
Three days after the soldier was seized on June 25th, Israel launched a military operation in southern Gaza which it said was aimed at winning his release. Late last week it expanded the incursion, sending forces into the northern part of the strip in an attempt to halt the rocket fire.
Over 50 Palestinians, most of them militants, have been killed in the Israeli incursion. But civilians have also died, including an 18-year-old Palestinian man who was killed yesterday when a missile fired by an Israeli aircraft at a vehicle carrying Hamas militants missed its target and struck the entrance to a small grocery store.
A mother and her two children were killed in a blast in their home in Gaza on Saturday. Palestinians said an Israeli missile had caused the blast, but Israeli military officials insisted the army had not been firing in the area at the time of the explosion.
A poll conducted among Palestinians by the Jerusalem Media and Communication Center found that 77 per cent of those questioned supported the kidnapping of the soldier. Some 69 per cent said the soldier should only be released if Palestinian prisoners are freed.
The United Nations has been increasingly critical of Israel's incursion into Gaza, warning it could spark a humanitarian crisis. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on Israel over the weekend to end its "disproportionate use of force," while at the same time calling for the soldier to be freed.