Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today he felt "regret" over 14 bystanders killed in recent Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli political source said.
But Mr Olmert, in his first, informal face-to-face meeting with Mr Abbas at a conference in Jordan, stopped short of apologising for civilian deaths that have drawn international censure of Israel's response to rocket salvos from militants in Gaza.
"I feel a deep regret over the death of innocents, but there is no moral equivalence between Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel and Israeli army operations because the army does not intend to hurt innocents," a source in Mr Olmert's office quoted him as telling Mr Abbas on the sidelines of the talks in Petra.
Five Israeli air strikes over the past two weeks have killed seven militants and 14 bystanders, many of them children.
Israel has defended the tactic as the only means of stemming rocket fire from Gaza, which it left last year after 38 years of occupation.
Mr Abbas, who last week condemned one air strike as "state terrorism" by Israel, had more conciliatory words upon his return from the meeting with Mr Olmert.
"We say that such attacks only bring the two people apart," he said. "They do not serve the peace process, and we hope for quiet and calm so we can return to the negotiating table."
But with Palestinian militants vowing revenge, questions have been raised in Israel and abroad as to the efficacy of the air strikes, prompting the military top brass to order a review.