Israeli Raid In Gaza Kills 6

Despite Early Morning Raid, Israel Decides Not To Expand Offensive In Gaza

(CBS/AP)  Israeli troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, killed at least six Palestinian militants early Wednesday in one of the military's largest strikes since re-entering the Gaza Strip over the summer.

An Israeli soldier also was killed in the operation in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the army said.

CBS News reporter Robert Berger reported that the Israeli military said the aim of the operation was to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.

Infantry, tanks and aircraft pummeled Beit Hanoun, which the military said was a staging ground for launching 300 rockets at Israel since the beginning of the year. Two homemade rockets fired from elsewhere in Gaza fell in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Wednesday, slightly injuring one person, the army said.

Palestinian hospital officials reported 33 wounded, most of them gunmen, but including a woman and an 11-year-old boy.

Dr. Jamil Suleiman, director of the Beit Hanoun hospital, said all of the hospital's blood supplies had been used up.

Israel, which evacuated Gaza in September 2005, re-entered the coastal strip to try to recover a soldier captured in June by militants linked to the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party. The soldier remains in captivity, but the military has since broadened its objectives in Gaza to crush militants' rocket-launching capabilities.

Despite its large-scale action in Beit Hanoun, Israel decided on Wednesday not to expand its 4-month-old military offensive in Gaza, even though Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had said earlier in the week that a broader operation was in the works.

An inner Cabinet of ministers decided not to escalate the offensive against rocket launchers and arms smuggling operations along the Egypt-Gaza border.

A senior Cabinet official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss policy with the press, said the ministers endorsed the more moderate approach of Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

Government spokewoman Miri Eisin said the inner Cabinet reserved the right to conduct a large-scale operation in the future, but would have to meet again to approve one.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning Wednesday's operation and urging the international community to take action to halt the incursion.

Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad accused Israel of deliberately keeping Gaza mired in chaos to give itself “a green light in order to continue aggression against our people.” Hamad also urged the international community “to take a serious step to stop this crazy attack from the Israeli side.”

The soldier's capture and subsequent Israeli offensive cut short nascent efforts to resume long-stalled peace talks with the moderate Abbas while bypassing Hamas, which refuses to abandon its violent campaign against Israel.

Israel's summer war against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas caused Olmert to shelve his plan to withdraw unilaterally from much of the West Bank. And the expansion of the Israeli government this week to include an ultrahawkish party made a new peace drive unlikely anytime soon.

Still, the Lebanon war has re-energized international efforts to restart peacemaking and avert further regional conflict.

On Tuesday, Peretz became the most senior Israeli public official to publicly consider a dormant Saudi land-for-peace proposal, revived after the war.

“We could see the Saudi initiative as the basis for negotiation. This does not mean that we are adopting the Saudi initiative, but it can serve as a basis,” Peretz told an academic conference at Tel Aviv University on Tuesday night.

The Saudi plan calls for a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world, in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel rejected a total territorial pullout, and in 2003, the Saudi initiative was overtaken by the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan.

That plan was frozen early on, however, after Israel failed to halt settlement expansion and the Palestinians refused to disarm violent groups.

Meanwhile, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said in a lengthy interview on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV Tuesday night that "serious negotiations" were taking place over the two Israeli soldiers
whose July 12 capture by his militant group sparked the 34-day war.

He said a negotiator appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been meeting with Hezbollah and Israeli officials. He would not provide details about the negotiations, but told Al-Manar: "We have reached a stage of exchanging ideas, proposals or conditions."

The Israeli government declined to comment on the assertion.

"We don't comment about anything that has to do with the abducted soldiers. Israel will do all it takes to get their release without hurting Israel's security," spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.